Ponderings from Piper's Paradise

The Great American Smokeout

2011-11-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

Today's the day we designate to encourage people to stop smoking, and I'll definitely light a bowl for that.

The Great American Smokeout is nothing more than a propaganda machine that ignores the basic truths about tobacco to demonize us for a choice we have made that we feel improves our lives.

If the government and interest groups were actually interested in the health of smokers, they would surely have used the power of the FDA by now to address the chemical additives in most cigarettes. I'm certain many of us still remember when cigarettes would extinguish themselves if they were not being actively smoked. We still see that with pipes and cigars. And the government saw this as a problem. But instead of mandating the removal of offending chemicals, they allowed additional chemicals to be added to create low-ignition-propensity paper. Don't forget, there are also chemicals in there to improve flavor, lessen the effects on the throat, and *cough* make them more addictive, including the artificial addition of increased nicotine content. To my knowledge, however, the studies have all been on the dangers of tobacco, not the dangers of the additional chemicals injected into cigarettes.

So they ignore the major studies, including one by the U.S. Surgeon General, that show pipe smoking actually extends your life expectancy. (Ironically, there are studies about the benefits of stress reduction, but no one's put the two together.)

But even though we often find ourselves at odds with the government, at least as far as our hobby goes, we are actually in one accord on this issue, because we, too, are trying to encourage people to quit cigarettes.

Even without the chemical additives, cigarettes use the lowest quality of tobacco leaf, which is necessary when they are mass produced in the quantities needed to supply the American market. Cigar and pipe tobacco leaf, however, is first rate stuff, usually grown by families relying on an ever-increasing body of institutional knowledge. Plus, there is great variety in pipes and cigars, ranging from Virginias to perique to Latakia and Connecticut to Maduro to Sumatra, respectively, with flavors an additional option in both tobacco forms. In all ways, pipe tobacco and cigars are vastly superior to cigarettes, and it's time people began to realize that.

So, in honor of the Great American Smokeout, encourage someone to quit smoking cigarettes by introducing them to the vastly superior tobacco available in pipes and cigars. It is our duty and our privilege.

A big opportunity

2011-11-05T18:34:00.001-05:00

We talked about this last year, but figured we'd better focus on the big move from Rogers to Bentonville, but we haven't given up yet on the idea of hosting the International Pipe Smoking Contest for the Arrowhead Pipe Club, of which TOPS is a member club.

We still believe we made the right decision last year in turning down the opportunity. Romeo's is much better off for not having the distraction of hosting the event, but that was then and this is now.

We'll be taking advantage of Thursday's meeting to discuss the contest, but we also have to talk about something else. To fund the contest, we will need everyone paid up on their $25 annual dues. We're not just asking for money, we're also offering something in return. We do have a Viking pipe set (one stem, two bowls) up for grabs, and the only way to enter the raffle is with your membership dues. Once we have enough paid members (I believe the number was $25), we'll be selecting a winner.

But the real winner will be TOPS once we make it to the contest next fall and meet a lot of fellow brothers of briar.

View from the Shop

2011-10-14T22:28:00.002-05:00

The ever-talented Zack Hoyt (who knew) took some fantastic photos at Romeo's and would like to share. They're on his blog, all of which is worth a look. http://fliesliesandotherdiversions.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/in-the-shop-romeos-uptown-pipes-and-cigars/?refid=12

Calling all amateur blenders

2011-07-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

As a club, The Ozark Pipe Smokers have very few stated purposes. The club was created to a) promote the enjoyment of pipe smoking wherever possible, and b) promote local pipe tobacco retailers. We're going for a twofer on this one.

Following in the footsteps of the Seattle Pipe Club, the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, and the Greater Kansas City Pipe Club, TOPS is starting to think about promoting its own blend. Said blend, of course, would be available only through our ever-generous host, Romeo's Uptown Pipes & Cigars, which fulfills one of our purposes.

The main reason you should participate, however, is that this will be our tastiest activity yet. Early discussions have introduced the possibility of blending and/or tasting days, open only to paid members, where we all sit down and smoke something that has never before existed.

If you're wanting to start early, we are leaning toward using Cornell & Diehl blending tobaccos. Our next meeting is July 14, and we are certain to talk about it more then.

Smoking in Style

2011-05-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sure everyone was curious what we ended up doing with the raffle money. Wonder no longer. The sofas are in, and they are comfortable. Thanks again for everyone who bought tickets or donated items. We have left our mark on Romeo's.

Westminster and Westminster: Side by Side

2011-04-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

I know that, on the surface, what I'm about to say here will seem ridiculous. I am about to compare a GL Pease blend with one from Altadis. Taken at face value, we shouldn't even bother. Greg Pease is known for quality English blends that showcase latakia, while Altadis is known for over-flavored aromatics that leave goop gunning up your pipe. I think it's safe to say that no one would ever be making this comparison if both blends weren't named Westminster.

The back story on this started at Pipe Chat, spilling over into Smokers Forums, drawing Mr. Pease into the mix. We can stipulate that Greg's Westminster was Westminster before Altadis' Westminster came along. Between Cornell & Diehl blends not being distributed in Europe and Altadis letting the non-smoking office staff name the blends, we get the Sutliff Private Stock Westminster, which is "skillfully blended latakia with Virginia and Turkish," to compare with Pease's Westminster, in which "New World red Virginias are enhanced with a gentle caress of bright leaf, then lavishly seasoned with rich oriental tobaccos and generous measures of noble Cyprus mountain Latakia."

What I'll offer here if honest first impressions. There is no guarantee that my impressions of these blends will change over time, but that's the nature of first impressions.

Westminster A: This is the Pease Westminster. I know that Altadis starts with A, but Greg's was around first, so he gets the A. We're going to call this a refresher sniff, a reminder to the olfactory senses before I leap into the new stuff.
It's every bit as robust as I remember, bold and smokey with a healthy tart sweetness (if such a thing can exist) that really makes my mouth water in a way that is counterproductive to a dry smoke.

Westmister B: The Altadis blend comes in one of those nice Sutliff tins that holds in all the flavor and keeps the tobacco from drying out, which I've always found to be a vast improvement on the normal plastic bags their bulks get. The flavor is overwhelming with a spicy sweetness of Turkish with the latakia actually understated a bit, at least in the tin note.

I don't waste any time in loading up the pipe. For the purposes of our experiment, I'm smoking in pipes that usually smoke latakia blends so there's no surprises. It lights easily and smokes well. The orientals fluctuate in strength throughout the bowl while the VAs and latakia seem to remain steady through most of the bowl. I am getting some bite, but it may be largely because I'm puffing too hard trying to put this one through its paces. The latakia comes on a little stronger at the bottom of the bowl, just in time to provide a welcomed crescendo at the end.

Westminster A: Smokey and satisfying from the first light, just the way I remember it. This blend has been smoked and studied since it came out. There's plenty of reviews of what is probably my favorite Pease blend, so I won't go into this too far. It's good; smoke it.

Verdict: The only two reasons to smoke these back to back is to, first, decide how close these two actually are and, second, to say which is better.

To answer the first part, these blends aren't all that close. They have the same basic ingredients: Virginias, latakia and orientals, although Altadis uses Turkish tobacco and Pease doesn't specify which orientals he uses. But the effect is two completely different smokes. The Altadis version plays up the orientals, while the Pease plays up the latakia, both to good effect. The Altadis comes off sweeter, while the Pease is savory. I can safely say that no one will mistake one Westminster for the other.

Now the second answer, and this one is much harder. And that's the interesting part, that this isn't the slam dunk you would expect. Based on this one side-by-side comparison, I have to pick Greg's Westminster. It's a much more seamless blend, with less distinction between the various tobaccos and a much more subtle combination. I can't, however, say with any certainty that I would give the same answer if I let a tin of each sit for six months to a year. It seems the Altadis version does need more time for the flavors to marry, and giving it that time could make a world of difference.

Tallman sweeps Thursday's giveaways

2011-04-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

Murray "Tallman" Farr swept the two remaining raffles, getting lucky on the pipe tobacco assortment and the Casa Magna cigars. Of course he was generous enough to pass the box before he left with most of the sticks.

There's the stash, and an impressive one it was.

The raffle raised $600 that will go toward furnishing "The Ozark Pipe Smokers' Smoking Lounge at Romeo's Uptown Smoking Pipes and Fine Cigars" (official name under review in hopes of finding something shorter). As always, pipe club meetings and lounge are cigar-friendly. All puffers of legal smoking products are welcome.

We have another meeting in two weeks, and I encourage you all to be as prepared as Michael in the picture below. Note that his hat brim is holding both a pipe and a cigar.

The art of waiting

2011-03-28T23:10:00.000-05:00

At the St. Louis Pipe Show, I bought myself a tin of Solani Silver Flake. It was priced on the high side for the money I took, but the sample was tasty, and it was a 100g tin. My buddy Jeff, an accomplished enabler, said it would only get better with age.

"Age" is a word that always brings apprehension and dread. So does "cellar." To someone with a strong desire to rip open the next tin and burn through that tobacco (or give it away) until it's empty and I can open the next one, the idea of setting one aside for an entire 365 days — 366 on a leap year — is daunting and intimidating. I imagined a need for great patience and self restraint.

The thing is, that was the 2010 pipe show, and all I needed was a short attention span.

After more than a year, the tin is in a drawer with the rest of my tobaccos. It's somewhere in there. At least, I have to assume it is. It's been a few months now since I've actually seen that one and taken notice. My goal of one year passed last month, and it took a few extra weeks for me to realize that. And what I huge reaction I gave.

Cool. Guess I can smoke it now.

Guess what. It's still not opened, still not smoked. It's not that I don't want to smoke it. The eagerness of a young pipe smoker is gone, replaced by the realization that I can take the time to enjoy what's open. I could die tonight, and I'd never be able to smoke that tobacco, but I've appreciated what I have smoked, and, given the chance, I'll appreciate this one too. It might be this year, and it might be next year, or it might be 2015. But now, at least, this tobacco isn't burning a hole in my pipe.

When it all comes down to it, cellaring is a tremendously difficult practice to start and an incredibly easy practice to master. All you and your mind have to do is something else.

TOPS Fifth Thursday Meeting

2011-03-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

It seems like we just had one of these, but I'll never turn down a Fifth Thursday TOPS meeting.

Fifth Thursday, of course, means movie night, and Frank spent part of today getting the details of our entertainment in order. We are still in need, however, of a movie. Any suggestions, please let Frank know.
And if we had nothing but a movie lined up, it would still be worthwhile, but there are other items on the agenda.
The biggest one is the conclusion of our raffle. At our regular meeting earlier this month, we named the winners of the Greg Pease pipe calendar and the Christiano pipe. That still leaves the Casa Magna cigars and the growing pipe tobacco assortment to give away. That also means anyone who wants to enter (or enter again) has until Thursday. Tickets are available at Romeo's during regular business hours and are still only $5 each, but TOPS accepts cash only.
All the raffle money will be used to buy furniture for the club-sponsored smoking area at Romeo's, and that brings us to the last of our agenda items. As Frank continues to put his new shop in order, he is coming to the point where he is ready to buy the furniture and wants to discuss it with the club first.
We meet Thursday, March 31 at 6:30 p.m., but some come early, some come late, and all should come ready to smoke. PS, don't come with a pre-loaded pipe. It just robs you of an opportunity to share in a blend you've yet to discover. Sure there's more than one opportunity during the night, but why miss out on any of them.

All around Uptown

2011-03-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

With Romeo's moving from downtown Rogers to uptown Bentonville, more changed than just where we light our tobacco. The places I stopped on the way to Romeo's are now in the other direction. While others may and probably do have different priorities, my first task was where to grab my favorite lunch.

Across the street and a few yards north from Romeo's, the sign says Sushi Ya, which, as fare as I can figure, means sushi place, so I guess the name could be more original. Inside, I found a man I took to be the proprietor, probably his wife, and a waiter, all three of whom were extremely friendly as I waited for my to-go order. The restaurant's decor is rustic, liberally using wooden fixtures and decorations. With a different menu, it could have felt very much like a log cabin, but the touches of Japanese culture made it feel authentic.
But who cares what it looks like if the food is good, right? And the food was good. I ordered their larger sushi lunch special, which let me choose three different sushi options. I ended up with a full roll each of spicy tuna and a crunch roll, along with a half rainbow roll. Rather than change the price for the more expensive rolls, he charges the same amount for a half. That may bother some, but I prefer knowing what I'm going to spend ahead of time, and the half rolls keep my wallet from being surprised.
Whether you get the half or full roll, it's worth it. The taste is fresh and light and satisfying, and the texture is absolutely perfect. The delicacy was well worth the money, and the money is still less than other sushi places not far away.
The sushi-eating pipe smoker may not be the most familiar of images, but my mouth and my stomach don't care about archetypes.

If you go: Sushi Ya is still close enough to the Walmart Home office to get a healthy lunch rush, so come early, come late, or come prepared to wait.

Tobacco Video Game Review

2011-03-20T21:15:00.001-05:00

I've got a pair of lesser known games to spotlight today, including one that is one of the more unique gaming experiences I've had. Without further ado, I'll leap right into...

Stacking (Xbox 360, PS3)
Who would have believed that a game about Russian nesting dolls (also called matryoshka or babushka dolls) could be charming, entertaining, challenging and gratifying all in one package-free package? The game is called Stacking, and it is available by download only. The hero of this game is the smallest of the nesting dolls in the Blackmore family, which specializes in chimney sweeping. Set toward the end of the industrial revolution (and taking full advantage of the opportunity for imagery that now might be called steampunk), Charles Blackmore must save his family, which has been forced into indentured servitude by the evil Baron. Charles, however, has only one power, the ability to stack, which he uses to enter into the bodies of others, control their actions and use their abilities. The effect isn't nearly as Body Snatchers as that might seem, though, and provides a fun bit of challenge, as you enter larger as you collect more. This mechanic allows some fun collecting games, like the one that asks you to stack five pianists (with suspiciously familiar names), resulting in a five-piano performance staring nesting dolls. The powers these dolls posses adds as much charm and humor as the story, which is told through "silent pictures", as you'll find characters that burp, mime, punch, measure, scream, vomit, and fly. There many whose abilities almost defy description, including one female with fragrant floral flatulence.
As for the pipe in question, it belongs to one Solicitor Barnabas, who can be found in the Royal Train Station. The gentlemen sports a top hat, a monocle, and dark brown pipe (probably a 3/4 bent billiard, although I could see an argument for a calabash). While the pipe is a deep brown when you first find the good Solicitor, if you complete his allotted task (in this case, asking the women in the station to accompany you for a night on the town) the pipe will transform from briar brown to glittering gold (not unlike the post-counting system at a favored forum I frequent, PipeChat.info). As for the smoking, he does puff the pipe, and a black plume of smoke arises, but then he coughs. Then again, what do you expect from a family game.
Stacking is a bit short, especially if you're not one to seek out all the collectibles and accomplishments, but that hardly seems an issue at only $15 on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN.

Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box (iPhone, PC)
This is a cheesy little game — not that there's anything wrong with that — well, basically about vampires. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot revolves around the main character's grandfather telling of how a ship he crewed was taken over by a vampire. Of course, the game itself doesn't have a whole lot to do with the plot. Vampire Saga is a hidden object/puzzle game. The picture searches give you items that you must use to allow the next part of the story. There's a lot of backtracking, and the fact that most necessary objects are received through the hidden object mini-games but some have to be spotted in the open environment will probably infuriate you a few times.
So why is this in the tobacco pipe review? The hidden object mini-games are practically littered with pipes. There are clays and briars and calabashes (and a few that were too dark to quite make out). Of course, the pipes don't add anything to the game, aren't singled out (other than maybe as an item you must tap to get your silver bullet), and play no role whatsoever except to clutter an already claustrophobic picture.
It's not a bad game if you like the genre, and the PC version is probably in the bargain bin at your local electronics retailer, but I wouldn't encourage anyone to seek it out.

Any questions or comments or criticisms about the reviews can be added below.

Scenes from a Bentonville Pipe Club

2011-03-11T15:20:00.000-06:00

The Ozark Pipe Smokers held the inaugural meeting at the new Romeo's Uptown Pipes & Cigars. We had a lucky number (13) in attendance with room to spare, and we didn't even need to utilize the "front porch" area. The club's record attendance was 17, and the new shop feels more than ready for that many and more, without feeling as crowded as even the more sparsely attended meetings at the old shop. Look below to see the spacious accommodations in action.

Romeo's is moving!

2011-03-03T20:07:00.000-06:00

Please try to be calm, but Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co. is leaving downtown Rogers. After more than two years, the shop has outgrown its original location, and circumstances have made this the time to find new digs.
The new shop will be at 220C N. Walton Blvd. in Bentonville, sharing a building with Radio Shack, across the street from O'Reilly's.
The new location gives Romeo's more space, and renovations are already underway to make the new shop as enjoyable for an afternoon smoke as the old shop was.
The big move is scheduled for Monday, with the new shop opening Tuesday, March 8.
It's the beginning of a new era for Frank and his little smoke shop and the following they have found in northwest Arkansas. Frank has big ideas for his new shop, and, as the consummate storyteller,
Oh, and there's one more thing. Romeo's is no longer in downtown, so Romeo's is getting a new name. Starting Tuesday, it will be Romeo's Uptown Pipes & Cigars.
Hope to see you all there.

Moving Day is Monday

2011-03-03T20:02:00.000-06:00

There have been no shortage of offers for help in Romeo's move from Rogers to Bentonville. Some of the volunteers, particularly those working on building out the new site, are already hard at work. For those who offered to help load the truck, the day is Monday, March 7.
Frank is asking anyone who has offered their help to be at the shop at 5 p.m. Monday. He's hoping for one big trip to get all the furnishings from the old shop to the new one. Because even the larger new shop could get crowded easily, those who would still like to volunteer are unfortunately not needed, although their offer is appreciated.

First club meeting to break in the new shop

2011-03-03T19:59:00.000-06:00

The Ozark Pipe Smokers will have their next regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, March 10 at 6:30 p.m., but those going to the usual spot will miss out. This will be our first meeting at Romeo's Uptown, 220C N. Walton Blvd., and we encourage you all to attend what is a historic meeting.
As always, TOPS' meetings are open to anyone, whether they enjoy a relaxing pipe, a fine cigar, or just the tobacco room note. For those who are unfamiliar with our meetings, they are filled with tall tales and long laughs and a cornucopia of tobaccos to try. If you smoke a pipe, I recommend bringing at least three so you can try more than one blend.
This meeting will also be the last to feature our mega-raffle. A mere $5 earns you a ticket that can be entered into one of four drawings. Up for grabs are a box of Casa Magna cigars, valued at $250, a Thomas Christiano nosewarmer pipe, valued at $180, a G.L. Pease photo calendar featuring 12 beautiful pipe pictures, valued at $50, and a selection of tinned tobaccos. Cash only, but you need not be present to win, so even if you won't be at the meeting, feel free to buy a ticket (or two or three or four...). All proceeds from the raffle will be used to furnish the expanded smoking area at the new Romeo's, so your participation in the raffles directly influences your comfort at the shop.
Again, this will be the first TOPS meeting at Romeo's Uptown, so please come to break in the new shop and say goodbye to the old one.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-02-21T00:29:00.000-06:00

Episode XVII: Burnt Jerky

Five bodies crawled along the wall once more, but all of them were tied to a rope this time, and all those ropes were tied to Asia. It was slower going this time, but fear didn’t weigh quite so heavily on them, since everyone would share the burden of getting each other to the top. Then again, they still had to contend with the occasional falling rock and debris.

They felt like their journey was getting closer to an end. It had to be, really, because they didn’t have the strength to keep going much longer. They had to believe that the end was closer than the beginning. Returning definitely didn’t seem like much of an option.

The group was about a quarter of the way up the cliff when Latakia’s stomach started cramping up. He had been the most cavalier about the adventure and the one who had packed the least food, eaten the earliest meal and assured them all they’d be back by dinner. Of course, they all saw this as the hyperbole it was intended as, but none of them realized how long the trek would take. Latakia started to untangle himself from the rope.

“What are you doing?” Asia asked, panicking at the thought of how easily he got loose from between them all.

“Don’t worry,” he said, seeing the fear she was unable to hold back. “I was a boy scout.”

“No you weren’t,” she said, as he disappeared into the darkness.

“So do we go back down or head up or just hang out here?” Jose asked.

“I’m not waiting for him or anyone else,” Rose said, still unhinged a bit from his earlier breakdown. “We climb.”

It wasn’t a particularly hard climb, with plenty of jutting rocks to offer a solid grip, except two of them had misgivings about leaving Chris alone below, but still they kept pace with the soldiers. A cave halfway up the mountain offered some shelter and rest, breaking up their longest climb of the journey. Asia gathered up some dried roots, and Jose fiddled with every ignitable item he had until he got a cigarette lighter to spark a flame. They had a fire going within minutes, which they built more for a bit of light than they did for the warmth, the underground being pretty stifling already, although the darkness did have its chilly moments.

“One night, while I was out ridin’,” Jose’s voice echoed as quietly as possible off the cave walls. “The graveyard shift, midnight ‘til dawn, the moon was as bright as a readin’ light for a letter from an old friend back home.”

“You and your damn singing,” Asia complained. “Don’t you know any new songs?”

“And he asked me, ‘Why do you ride for your money? Tell me why do you rope for short pay? You ain’t a’gettin’ nowhere and you’re losin’ your share…’”

“Boy, you must have gone crazy out there.”

As always, Latakia was right on cue. He slid in next to them all and sat silently, enjoying their penetrating stares as he intentionally left them in the dark as long as he dared. It was “as long as he dared” because Asia was certain to throw something at him. She did. He never expected, though, that it would be on fire. He brushed embers off his face, off his hat, off his shirt, but Asia’s anger had faded, so he settled down in the circle round the fire. With a burning branch plucked from the micro blaze, Latakia lowered the flame into his bowl and drew deep on the still-moist latakia until it seemed to be burning on its own. He laughed in his head, enjoying how this new activity had earned him even more time to avoid saying what he had done down below while they climbed without him, but he did take the opportunity to wipe the blood from his machete to give them a clue.

With an air of “ironic” patronization, Latakia pulled his pipe to pontificate without a pulpit to the pewless congregation.

“Do we remember the criticisms hurled my way about my lack of planning?” he asked, mostly directed at Asia, and though the question was clearly rhetorical, he paused for dramatic effect. “No one? Really? Well, as it turns out, there was good reason for your memory lapse, as I’m sure you won’t even be able to believe you once doubted my abilities to improvise, not that any of you ever doubted me.”

When he finally finished, his pipe stem was pointed directly at Asia, an unnecessary emphasis that riled her temper.

“If you let this go one single second longer,” she shouted, “I’ll send you straight back down to the bottom of this cliff, free to do whatever you were doing, as long as you don’t need any solid bones!”

Latakia held up his hand, as if that would have stopped a ferocious ex-girlfriend. Once again, they waited for him, but they did so with violence behind their collective gaze. He finally gave in.

From inside his satchel, Latakia flung dead flesh at Asia. He did it so she would scream. She didn’t. Instead, she grabbed the object and hurled it at him, and then she wished she had another to throw when he laughed at her. The sickening thump of the meat slapping the floor far below echoed back up to them.

“Luckily, I brought more than enough,” Latakia said.

He reached back into his bag for a half dozen more servings of the mystery meat and started handing it out.

“Someone needs to find sticks for us to roast them on.”

Rose and Gylden pulled out knives to carve up some spits, taking a grateful break from Latakia and his immanent self-congratulatory tale. Silently, they scuttled back into the darkness in search of suitable sticks, catching Latakia, out of the corner of their eyes, standing as much as he could under the low ceiling in search of a presentation element for his story.

“There I was…” It wasn’t really the way he wanted to start his story, but it was a classic opening, and he was willing to take comfort over style at this point. “… backtracking in the darkness, back among the vermin and the rodents. They looked out from their holes and their corners and their shadows, staring up at the god who had returned to them. Little did they know” — another comfortable cliché — “that their god was a vengeful god, quick to anger and unforgiving in his fury. With my right hand, I wielded the object of their undoing…” He pulled his machete to illustrate the majesty of his actions, but it didn’t have the same effect, as he stood doubled over under the low hanging roof. “… and with my left hand, I chose the objects of my wrath one by one, ending their wretched lives with the flash of my holy blade.”

A small spear flew out of the darkness, piercing the ground between Latakia’s feet and standing as phallic as his ego.

“That’ll do,” he said, and he returned immediately to his story. “So I found myself surrounded by beady-eyed rodents, and I…”

“We better find this treasure soon,” Asia interrupted, “or someone will be coming back down here to find Latakia Billows.”

“At least let him cook us some mole before you kill him,” Jose said.

“Have you ever eaten mole?” Asia asked. “You might be asking me to kill him before you stomach is full.”

As always, Asia’s words were born in wisdom. The mole, while technically serving its purpose of filling stomachs, was gamey and tough and very reminiscent of burnt jerky. The chef was certainly more to blame than the poor moles, but at least none of their meat went to waste. Empty stomachs forgive a multitude of culinary shortfalls.

The food may have been nearly unforgiveable, but sitting around the small fire, with plenty of food and no sign of Indians or booby traps, lulled them into a sense of comfort and safety, and one by one, they leaned up against the cave wall and gratefully settled down for a nap, falling asleep to the sound of dirt falling down the cliff like a gentle shower.

They began waking up a mere half hour later, still somehow feeling their energy and their hope renewed. That hope remained as they packed up their gear, wrapped the ropes to connect them all, and started back up the cliff again. Even the dirt falling on their heads didn’t dampen their spirits.

The climb ended before they expected it, but they were relieved for a horizontal surface on which to stand. Rose and Gylden panned this new room with their lights. It was an incredibly large room, open enough that they could barely make out the ceilings, but there was nothing sophisticated about its construction. The rough walls curved seamlessly into the ceiling and back down the other side. There was what might have been a tunnel leading out the other side of the huge dome, but there was one issue to deal with first.

“Uh, Latakia,” Jose asked, “why is the ground moving?”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-02-14T00:00:00.001-06:00

Episode XVI: Forget the Movies

The second waterfall along their journey was an easier one to navigate, particularly because they weren’t in a boat this time and had time to realize they could use the soldiers’ zip lines.

“Remind me to get rich before we try this again,” Latakia said. “I want cool toys to use next time.”

“I thought the plan was to get rich this time,” Asia said.

“And here I thought we were down here because you had gotten bored running in Central Park.”

“It’s not like you couldn’t use the exercise with that little bit of pudge you’ve been growing.”

“You like my pudge.”

“Almost as much as you like running out of beer, but not nearly as much as you like everything leading up to it.”

“That almost made sense,” Latakia laughed, “but you need to work a little bit harder.”

Asia made some noise that meant she was done with the argument, at least for now.

The river continued on, through some rocks before ducking into a low cave that they had almost no hope of getting through, but the path was branching off anyway. The soldiers led with their flashlights, and Latakia held a torch he stole form the underground city.

“I doubt anyone actually lived down here,” Asia said, trying to pass the time more than make any point. “The building was probably a shelter. In this area, probably against warring tribes, but it could have been weather. It’s hard to tell without more study.”

They had only gone a hundred yards when the path ahead of them started glowing. This was the first light they had seen that they didn’t cause, but not everyone was happy about it.

“What a rip off,” Latakia yelled, looking up at the ceiling for a glimpse of sky poking through. “To make us go so far out of our way when there was a way in here, that just mean!”

As they drew nearer, the glow grew stronger. Jose called past it into the darkness, in case it was someone coming the other way.

“We aren’t here to cause trouble,” he said to whoever might be on the other side.

“Not all of us, anyway,” Latakia added.

“You’re not helping,” Asia scolded.

“It’s gone,” Rose gasped.

The two soldiers had turned off their lights, and the glow ahead of them followed suit. Latakia had turned his back for the verbal sparring with his friends, and he spun back around with the torch to see, but the light came back on.

“Soldier boy, come here,” he called to Gylden, who obliged, despite his objection to being called “soldier boy”.

Latakia used Gylden to block the torchlight, and the glow vanished. He exposed the light, and the glow matched. He rushed ahead to bring the two lights together, the glow strengthening as the flame drew near.

The glow was as bright as a strong night-light when Latakia reached it, and it extended for a 50-foot stretch of tunnel.

“It’s a crystal,” Latakia shouted back to his friends. “It’s a lot of crystals.”

“A lot” didn’t do the sight justice. There were hundreds of perfectly clear crystals, carefully carved and crafted and perfectly positioned to cast any light down the tunnel, crisscrossing the whole way down. Each crystal was rounded by hand to bounce the glow in all direction, only to be caught by another and passed down the line. With each step, the crystals sacrificed some of the light to pass it along, so the far end of the tunnel faded as the edges of a desert mirage.

Faces filled the spaces between the crystals, angry, screaming faces. Their eyes accused, mocked and saw the fear in any who passed; their mouths shouted shrill warnings into the soul. Asia traced the nearest one with a finger and started to step in for a closer look.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Latakia grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her back.

“What the heck are you doing?” she demanded.

He pulled his machete and pushed it into the ground. A section of floor fell slightly at his touch, and a knowing look passed over Asia’s face. The faces spewed projectiles across the tunnel for the full 50 feet.

“Even if you haven’t seen all the movies, you’d think you’d have had enough arrows shot at you to be a little more careful,” Latakia said.

They stared for a while at the crystal-lit passage, forming a plan, pondering the implications.

“So all those arrows in the canyon?” Jose asked. “They could have all been shot without anyone aiming them?”

“I assume we have to get across still,” Asia said.

“So how many Indians are there?” Jose continued.

“What if we…” Asia pondered.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Latakia said.

“We’ll have to time it,” Asia declared.

“That would be rash,” Latakia warned.

“One,” Asia counted. “Two.”

“And that’s where we’ll stop you,” Latakia said, grabbing her by the arm. “I like you as an American. I don’t want to see you turned to Swiss.”

“You keep getting cheesier all the time,” Asia said, pulling her arm away from him. “So how do we go through?”

“We wait until it runs out of ammo, of course.”

He laughed at her blank stare and turned to see three more.

“You mean you guys never thought of this? You never wondered why they never run out of stuff to shoot in the movies?”

Laughing, he pressed down again on the pressure plate. Arrows again sprayed across the tunnel. He triggered it again, but there were fewer arrows this time. Eight times he pressed it before the trap stopped responding.

“See, I told you,” Latakia said to the rest. “It’s not like the movies. You do run out.”

He stepped out into the crystal-spread light, and a single arrow sliced through his sleeve, leaving streak of blood to mark its path.

“I guess one got left behind,” he said, rubbing his arm. “No need to worry, by the way; it’s just a scratch.”

“I wasn’t worrying,” said Asia, as she walked out past him. “Just hoping.”

Rose drew his gun, and they all froze. The dim light from the crystals gave everything a shadow, even things that weren’t there. The hours, days or weeks they may have spent down in the caves already had made the darkness a constant companion, but it was an annoying and obnoxious friend, the kind that made Latakia seem reserved and cultured, but they could never say for certain whether the shadows had mass or if the dark was just messing with them. Whatever it was, the darkness was moving.

The second time the shadow flew by, Gylden pulled his pistol, and the soldiers stood shoulder-to-shoulder to take on this new threat. They inched forward, the tunnel vibrating around them, speaking to them in a low rumbling voice. A pattern emerged: a deep growl, followed by playful whisper, and then the fluttering shadow. The grumbling was random, but the sequence came regular as clockwork. They learned to listen for the cadence.

Rumble. Whisper. Flutter.

The closer they approached — slowly, ever slowly — the lower the flutter. Before more than a few yards, the soldiers were pulling themselves along on their elbows, just to keep the flutter at eye level. Their movements were impossibly slow and calculated, so as not to disturb whatever was before them. No one, save the mountain, made a sound as they moved, scarcely daring to breathe as the moment of truth drew near. Rose lay inches from the fluttering shadow, the growl fell on them from above, and it ran away. Really, that’s the best way to describe it. As soon as the noise came, it scuttled away, as if it were more afraid of the sound than the strange face that was inches away from it. They waited for the pattern to play out; the grumbling had passed, and next came the whisper.

Most of them heard the whisper, but Rose felt it. A shower of dirt and pebbles fell on him, a light dusting really, and nothing nearly serious enough to evoke his reaction.

“I have had enough of this damn place!” he shouted into the air, his echo forwarding his distress higher and higher into the air.

“It’s alright,” Latakia urged. “Try to calm down.”

“It is not right!” Rose’s volume was increasing as the others tried to calm him down. “This whole place isn’t right! Not one single thing is right here!”

The three adventurers gestured for Rose to pull it back together, to lower his voice, to return to sanity. Gylden had no intention of waiting.

Like an overpowered linebacker, Gylden speared rose, driving them both to the floor, but it wasn’t until Rose heard the click of his partner’s pistol cocking that he finally stopped shouting.

“I am getting out of here one way or the other,” Gylden hissed into Rose’s ear. “I will make it back to the outside, even if I have to bury you to do it. Don’t make me.”

Rose opened his mouth, be he never uttered a sound. He was lying on his back and glanced up to see a nose and whiskers hovering over him. Gylden, lying on top of Rose and pinning him to the ground, looked up to see the same sight. They froze.

“That’s enough of this silent waiting,” Latakia said, and he turned one of the flashlights on the soldiers and, as it turned out, a mole. Just a mole. Nothing more than a common, everyday mole.

The grumbling above returned, and the mole disappeared. The dust shower fell with a whisper, and another mole darted across the floor, this time not bothering to stop and inspect the prostrate soldiers. The pattern made sense. The rumbling let the moles know rocks would fall, and they waited until the shower ended to sprint from one wall to the other.

Rose lost it. He had been using all his skills to track a boring rodent, and he could think of no better response than cussing a blue streak. He got out four or five good, loud profanities before Gylden could cover his mouth.

As if spurred by his raised voice, the ground above them quaked. The rock groaned and rumbled and grumbled and shook. A few more moles scurried past, then a dozen, then hundreds. It was a mass evacuation, and still the ground above them shook, but this time it wasn’t dust that fell, it was large stones and a waterfall of sand. Rose and Gylden rolled over each other getting out of the way, and they waited for the dust to settle before venturing back in.

Pointing their lights up, they found the tallest cliff they had yet found, a great hole in the ground that acted as a drain for whatever was up above pushing dirt around.

“We have to climb it.”

Of them all, Asia was most surprised to find her voice making that suggestion. She felt nauseous over the prospects of scaling another rock wall and that she had condemned herself to do it.

Latakia and Jose looked immediately at the soldiers. Gylden had one eye closed, peering with the other at the top of the cliff above, while Rose’s eyes were clamped shut, his face giving off a look of deep calculation. They turned to each other and shook their heads.

“It’s too high for our grappling hooks,” they said.

Jose stammered. “But you used those to go all the way up a mountain earlier!”

“We must have come down a lot lower than we thought,” said Latakia. “Are we even sure we’re in the same mountain?”

“Heck, I’m not even sure this is still Arizona,” Jose said.

Asia said nothing. She was still coming to grips with the fact that she just forced herself to climb the largest cliff they had come across so far and she couldn’t think of anything else, not even the rope being secured around her again.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-02-07T00:00:00.001-06:00

Episode XV: All Washed Up

Latakia kicked himself. He should have known there was a waterfall. There’s always a waterfall in these kinds of stories, and Latakia was sending them all straight toward it. He tried to atone with humor.

“I guess we’re all…”

“If you make a single bad joke, I’ll rip off your leg and make that my oar.” Asia’s threats always had a way of making Chris shut up, partially because he was afraid, but mostly because he was trying to decide if he might enjoy having his leg ripped off by her.

“Do you see it?!” Jose couldn’t stop screaming at them. “Do you see the Indian? Tell me you see it!”

“We see it! Shut up already!” Rose had his gun drawn, but he was having enough trouble balancing in the boat while aiming without a crazed Mexican bellowing in his ear.

Gylden, having no room in the small canoe to squeeze off a shot past his partner, was sending his light downriver to see what they had gotten themselves into and if they had any chance of avoiding it.

There were five of them in that one small boat, and that was a lot more than there were ever meant to be in it. That fact dawned first on Asia, as she noticed it was getting easier by the stroke to reach down into the water.

“We’re sinking,” she said to whoever was still paying attention.

“We don’t have enough river to sink,” Gylden called from the back.

They all turned, forgetting about the supposedly-extinct Aztec warrior standing back on dry land, to see exactly how far they were from their demise.

It was about 50 feet.

They were a fourth-and-very-long away from a very long drop, and Latakia would have suggested a Hail Mary pass, but he wasn’t very good with sports metaphors. Besides, he was the hero of this story, and it was about time he did something brave, daring and spectacularly brilliant. He pulled out his machete, but his spirit faded as the rope he was trying to attach to it kept slipping off the end, not that he had any idea what he was going to do with it anyway.

“Well, maybe I could… No, but I… What if…” His mutterings went unnoticed by the others, who were trying their own ideas to save them all, or at least to save themselves. It was a mad scramble with a lot of banging elbows with five desperate people spinning in circles, looking for any inspiration in the sinking boat.

Latakia glanced occasionally at his impending doom. At 25 feet out, he couldn’t see the river at the bottom. He went back to his pondering. At 10 feet out, he couldn’t see the river at the bottom. He returned to his pondering with a little more desperation. At five feet out, he still couldn’t see the river at the bottom. Time was up, and he stared until the angle showed him the floor below. It really was a long way down.

They had reached the edge and run out of time. The only tool Latakia had left to use was his gut. He thought he was best when he didn’t think anyway. With gravity about to do it’s thing, he wrapped an arm around Asia on his left and Jose on his right and pushed off, pulling them into the air and away from the boat and the pounding force of the water.

The whole trip down, Asia savored each moment by smacking Latakia hard. She used a lot of profanity too, even words in languages he had never considered. Jose’s were in Spanish, and Chris knew most of those. He hoped they’d all live to forgive him.

As quickly as the edge of the waterfall arrived, the bottom was sure taking its time. Latakia looked back to barely see the boat passing by them in the dim cavern as it entered the waterfall’s spraying mist. It disappeared into the foam before they heard it splinter onto some unseen rocks. Asia smacked Latakia one more time. He opened his mouth to say something smart-assed, but it immediately filled with water.

All the lights were out again, and Latakia was standing firmly on the ground. The only problem is the ground on which he was standing was at least ten feet below the surface of the water. Jose and Asia kicked off hard from the ground and headed for the air. Latakia hesitated for a second to let their kicking feet pass by his head. By the time he broke through, he was sputtering water in all directions. He emptied all the water from his mouth and then opened his eyes. Asia was glaring at him with a face full of water, a second coating of it that Latakia had her with after she’d wiped the first away.

“You spit in my face!” she yelled at him.

“But I saved your life.”

She let out a groaning scream that was as much frustration as anger, but it was all directed at the man she used to love. Water sprayed and splashed everywhere as she flailed at him. Latakia found he wasn’t thirsty by the time she gave up and they climbed ashore, but he was curious if there was anything in this water that deserved his worry.

A buzzing overhead caught their ears, and all three turned their attention toward the cliff from which they had just fallen, with Jose, still seeing Aztec warriors behind his closed eyelids, staying within an easy leap of shelter.

Of course, Asia’s anger from the river a moment earlier would have been more justified now than the fear they felt, as the whir that accompanied Rose and Gylden up the mountain earlier was now following them down the waterfall and landing softly as a feather on either side of the river.

“You mean you could have just carried us all down with you?” Asia screamed.

“You didn’t ask,” Rose said.

Asia marched right up to him. Glared at him for a long second. And just as she looked like she was about to say something…

Rose never saw it coming. He was standing and dry. And then he was falling. And then he was wet.

Gylden laughed until Jose and Latakia were rolling in the dirt, holding their sides. He laughed until Asia laughed. He laughed until Rose reached up and pulled him into the water too.

They were all wet and all laughing and all lying on the dirt like salmon with bad aim, but the moment’s levity was healing a journey’s worth of wounds and scars, the kinds that lie just under the surface. With the temporary joy echoing off the walls, despite the roaring waterfall, their packs felt lighter, their stomachs fuller, their path easier.

Latakia kept laughing in his wet clothes until he reached for his pipe. As he lifted the billiard to his mouth, he felt a dribble of water down his chest and neck and chin.

“Do you think these things are machine washable?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

It’s not like he could have smoked anything anyway. His previously dehydrated Squadron Leader had taken a turn in the opposite direction, with the arrow hole through the tin not keeping a drop of water out, although having it still wrapped in a handkerchief kept most everything except the water outside. Latakia propped the pipe upside down to drain and laid out the tobacco as thinly piled as he could.

Jose, bending a wet cigar of his own, felt the need to sing fall over him, and he opened his mouth to let out whatever was welling inside.

“Well, I pulled out of Pittsburgh, rollin’ down the eastern seaboard.”

Asia rolled her eyes, but he kept singing.

“I got my diesel wound up, and she’s running like never before.”

The soldiers just stared at him, but he took no notice.

“There’s a speed zone ahead a bit, all right; I don’t see a cop in sight.”

Suddenly, his mind drifted back to the Aztecs that had peppered their journey. He imagined them hiding around the next corner, like a police car hidden behind a billboard. His song left him, but luckily Latakia had picked it up.

“Six days on the road and I’m a-gonna make it home…”

The soldiers’ flashlights had been dancing around crevices in the walls of this new cavern, regularly spaced and similarly shaped, almost as if they were planned. At the word home, it struck him.

“… tonight.”

He finished the song out of obligation, but his voice trailing off drew the others’ attention. They watched as Latakia dripped the river along behind him.

“You two move back,” he called to the soldiers. “Make the beam as wide as possible.”

He could still only see a piece at a time, but the puzzle looked suspiciously like a skyscraper. There were at least a dozen rows of windows going up toward the ceiling and a dozen windows across. A gasp escaped Asia’s lips as she contemplated the implications of this underground, vertical city, but Latakia still favored exploration over deep thought.

He ran from the wall, jumping into and then out of the river, bounding over to the soldiers, grabbing Gylden’s flashlight without a word, and heading immediately back. Before anyone realized what he was doing, Latakia was inside the building. A beam of light escaped on the first floor and disappeared. Then it was on the second floor, the third, the fourth, skipped the fifth to go straight to the sixth, and then vanished as the angle of the building kept them from looking in the windows. The four on the floor stood silently, waiting for an answer to a question they hadn’t bothered to voice. Time became their companion as the moments ticked away, until Jose, stirred by the wait, gave in to his restlessness and started looking for Rose and his flashlight.

“Hey!” a voice cried down from far above them. Latakia turned the flashlight on himself so they could see him. “There’s a few plates and bowls here and there, but these people packed up and left. Hold on, I’ll be down in a minute.”

He was staring straight at his friends, or at least what he thought were his friends in the unsteady glow of a flashlight. With so much distance between them, he couldn’t make out quite what they were doing, but he squinted harder, trying to see better. A small light glowed down on the ground. It could have been a flashlight or a cigarette lighter or a flare, for all Latakia’s depth perception could tell.

Before he could even guess at what was going on, the flame vanished. Latakia returned to his squint only to have his leer met with a brilliant flash of light. He took refuge behind the wall and rubbed his eyes feverishly until the spots disappeared several minutes later. He returned to the window to the Olympic Torch, or at least the Aztec version of it, burning brightly enough to light the whole room. And what a room it was. Besides the skyscraper, Latakia could make out a plumbing system drawing water from the river, several storage buildings, part barn and part silo, and an open building that had to be a food distribution center.

Below, Asia was beaming. After missing the temple for the totems earlier, she had been the one to find the torch and reveal the city. She finally felt like she could have actually been the hero in this story, rather than just a sidekick. She was finally shaking off all the time she spent face-to-face with her books in favor of a less clinical method of study, and she found it suited her well.

Latakia reached the ground, rejoined his friends, and slapped Jose firmly on the back.

“Heck of a find, buddy,” he said, but Jose just shook his head.

“It was me,” Asia spat at him. “I found it. But you wouldn’t know that, because you don’t think I’m smart enough to do this. Maybe I’m not man enough to do this. Maybe…”

“About time you showed up,” Latakia interrupted. “I figured we would have been following you the whole time.”

Asia was pretty sure she should still be mad at him, but she was having trouble switching her motivation, and her anger sputtered.

“So where too,” Latakia asked her, smiling. “You’re the expert.”

She furrowed her brow, thought for a second, and then decided it was time to forget thinking and follow her gut.

“If there’s no treasure here, we need to keep going,” Asia said. “We stick to the river, at least for now. Let’s go.”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-01-31T00:27:00.001-06:00

Episode XIV: Right and Wrong

Three doors and one chance, and eeny, meeny, miny, moe just didn’t seem like it would cut it.

“The eagle snatches the serpent, the serpent strikes the wolf, and the wolf stalks the eagle.” It was becoming a mantra, and Asia repeated it in her head much more frequently than she did aloud.

The problem with this rock-paper-scissors idea was that any of them could be right at any given time. She looked again for clues, but there were none. Against her better judgment, she tried eeny, meeny, miny, moe, throwing in what her “mother said to pick”, just for good measure. At the end, her finger pointed to a picture of a snake biting a wolf. Latakia had said they just needed to pick a door, so she reached for it.

“That’s not the right one.”

Asia had almost forgotten Latakia was in the room until his voice pierced his own cloud of smoke.

“And I suppose you somehow translated all the glyphs in this place to learn the right answer?” she shot back at him.

“Didn’t need to.” He kept smoking, as if there wasn’t a discussion going on at all.

“So which one is it?”

“The eagle, of course.”

“And by what stretch of logic brought you to that conclusion?”

Latakia stood up as tall as he could, pushing his chin up and his shoulders back. He held his pipe at his chest in his best Sherlockian pose, as if he had been practicing for just such an occasion.

“The figures of the eagle, the serpent and the wolf appear nowhere in the temple carvings, but the predominance of the solar image indicates this to be a sky-worshiping people,” he said in his most scholarly voice. “Therefore, we can deduce that the eagle would be a sacred animal and the adornment fitting for a door leading safely along the path.”

Asia took no effort to hide her gape-jawed expression. Jose filled the chamber with echoing laughter.

“A Cowboy picks the Eagles to win!” he roared. “I’ve seen it all now!”

Latakia smirked, shook his head, and walked over to the door. Calmly, he stood facing his friends, extended a hand backward, and pushed the door open.

A rumbling erupted from the other two doors, as they watched the counterweights lift into the air. It was followed by the sound of something heavy thudding into the dirt. Without trying, they knew they couldn’t open those doors now.

No one moved, turning purple slowly as they held their breath, waiting for something else, anything, to happen. Latakia rolled his eyes with impatience, and, with a sigh, stepped through the doorway. Still, no one followed. From the other side of the door, he called back to them.

“I guess there will just be more treasure for me!”

The soldiers inched forward first, aiming their flashlights as if they might try to shoot them. They slid through the open doorway and examined the room. Rose’s flashlight fell on something hanging from the ceiling, and he grunted something to Gylden. Suspended above the unopened doorway was a large, hinged set of spikes, carved to an excruciatingly pointed tip, and there was a second next to it, both ready to fall if someone opened either of those doors.

Latakia turned in time to see the illuminated death trap and gasped for air. He had no doubt that he’d have been able to overcome any little obstacle they put in his way thousands of years ago. If he had chosen the wrong door, he now realized, he would have also been mistaken about his chances to survive it.

Jose and Asia, knowing Latakia best, and therefore trusting him least, were the last through the door. They wouldn’t have been the least surprised if St. Peter was standing on the other side to welcome them to the afterlife. He wasn’t. Neither was Lucifer, so they breathed easier and let their hearts slow the tempo.

This cavern showed no evidence of carving. It was a gift of the mountain, a natural extension of the tunnel. Nature had given the workers a break.

Numerous wooden baskets, the first evidence that humans had actually been here, that these caverns were any more than inexplicable geological accident or the result of some alien or deist intervention. To Asia’s practiced eye, the few tools — basket and polls and pulleys — appeared as if they had been used for transporting rather than constructing. Whatever the reason, there had been activity here.

Jose, having found the walls adorned with torches, was lighting every other one.

“Just in case we need some on the way back,” he said.

The light was brighter than their eyes could take. A couple flashlights provided a substantial glow in the pitch, but a half dozen torches blanketed walls and ceiling and floor and faces.

But the flame didn’t illuminate every corner, every nook and cranny. There were still corners, deep corners where shadow still ruled. Jose still wasn’t fond of shadows. He didn’t trust them and wanted them all destroyed, but a few torches and a pair of flashlights won’t do that for you, not all at once. So Jose took it upon himself to tackle the shadows one at a time.

Latakia was on one knee, examining some lines drawn in the dirt. They were straight lines leading away from the temple. Parallel lines on the left and right appeared and vanished, but the “center” line, which alternated to the right or left of the pattern without actually moving, remained as straight and constant as the arrows that had flown at them outside the mountain.

Jose had covered about half the nooks, exposing them with the brilliantly white flashlight. He hadn’t found anything but stone and dirt. His inability to find anything, though, hadn’t kept his breathing calm or his heart beating andante.

He flicked the light over to the next shadow, always starting at the ground. He figured that no matter how tall someone hiding in the shadows might be, they would always have to have their feet on the floor. He let out a nervous sigh as the light revealed absolutely nothing, but he still lifted the beam, just in case.

Knee high… nothing.

Waist high… nothing.

Chest high… nothing.

Head high… not nothing.

Jose fell backward and scrambled in retreat while still trying to keep his light focused on the face. It was black, with white eyes and lips, very much like the makeup used in the 20s when a white men pretended to be black. But there was nothing there apart from the head, and Jose was already keenly aware that he was still the only one to see anyone besides the five of them. He gathered himself to examine it again.

As he walked toward it, he decided it was stone, but it might have been petrified wood. He walked closer, training the light on it at all times, and he could see where time had worn the edges smooth. He pulled his face close, looking at the texture on the chin and jaw. He tried to avoid the mask’s eyes, but it was a battle he lost, and he found himself staring directly into the hypnotic stone gaze.

The mask blinked.

Jose didn’t bother to make sure his feet were touching the ground as he careened across the cavern and into his friends, plowing through them as if they were bowling pins.

Latakia picked himself off the ground to the accompaniment of his own joke.

“I’ll have what he’s having.”

“That only works when you’re talking about someone who’s actually having something,” Asia replied.

“Well, I haven’t seen him do that since some of our wild college days,” Latakia said, “so I repeat, I’ll have what he’s having.”

Rose cleared his throat until he had everyone’s attention. He had reached Jose, who was curled into a ball in the corner furthest from where his mad dash started, eyes covered tightly by his hands and his hat, forcing muffled screams through the brim.

Latakia had made out the word “face” and sprinted in the direction of Jose’s starting point. He found the mask and put his face right next to it for close inspection. It looked rather uninteresting and stiff. He poked the mouth. He prodded the cheeks. He put his finger hard into the eye.

Nothing happened.

Asia arrived next, offering her scholarly eye on the object.

“It’s a traditional Aztec mask,” she said over her shoulder to a still shaking Jose, venturing closer but hidden behind the two soldiers.

“I swear to you, it blinked!” Jose protested in a shouted whisper. He didn’t want to be the one to wake that thing up again.

Asia and Latakia exchanged a look that said they were worried the caves were getting to their friend.

“I’m not crazy,” Jose blurted, “and I can keep going.”

Defiantly, he marched off into the darkness. The others scrambled to catch up until they found him standing next to a wide underground river. Scanning with his light, Rose found a boat in the dirt next to the water. Asia noticed the sign.

“I think this says danger,” she said, “but it only seems to suggest danger if we go left.”

Latakia had a stick in the water to test its depth, but all he could feel was the current’s pull.

“That’s the way the waters flowing, and fast,” he said. “I wonder which way the treasure is.”

“Well, it’s not across the river,” Jose offered. “There’s nothing over there but rocks.”

“The boat will hold us all,” said Rose, adding his rare contribution to the conversation.

Both soldiers were standing in the boat, and there looked to be enough room for all of them, though maybe with a bit of a squeeze. It looked seaworthy enough, even after all the years.

“Now we see what made those tracks,” Latakia said. “So it would seem no one has walked through here since the boat was put in.”

“Or someone made it look that way,” Jose interjected. “Did you find any footprints?”

“None.”

“Then who dragged the boat here?”

The adventurers stood puzzled while the soldiers put the boat in the water and anchored it to the shore with a line. It floated. They didn’t care why the boat was there, only that it was there, and they planned to put it to good use.

Timidly, each one stepped into the boat, taking their time to test how it responded to their weight. Latakia was the least careful, though. The last one in, he bounced, and then hopped. Even he wouldn’t go more than a sliver off the surface, though. Asia tried asked the logical question.

“So how do we paddle up the…”

“Indian!”

They all looked up, and there, in the beam of Jose’s flashlight, was an unmistakable Aztec Indian holding a bow in one hand and a spear in the other. The soldiers reached for their guns. Latakia drew his blade.

And with one smooth slice, he severed the rope holding the boat, and its passengers, to the shore. They immediately started floating toward what the sign had promised they would not enjoy.

“Paddle,” Asia screamed.

“With what?” Jose shouted back.

“There’s an oar,” Gylden said, stretching out toward the shore to retrieve it. “I can’t reach.”

Latakia tried to tie a rope around his machete, but he wasn’t quick enough. First the oar disappeared behind a rock wall, and then the Aztec. The roar of the river drowned out their profanities, but they did allow a scream to escape. Latakia was pointing a flashlight downstream, but there wasn’t a downstream to illuminate, just some foam and a dropoff. The river was headed deeper into the mountains, the hard way, and they had no choice but to follow it all the way down.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-01-24T00:00:00.003-06:00

Episode XIII: Faces In Pillars

The secret to a fantastic burger is to sear the surface while preserving the juices inside. The center should be pink and moist, warm but not bloody. The cheese should be melted enough to droop but not to run. The bacon on this burger would be crispy, so as to add a texture variant to the meal. Others prefer a pliable strip, but the consensus is that bacon makes everything better.

“No, you idiot, that’s the way we came!”

And, of course, the buns would be buttered and toasted. And what to drink? Whatever it would be, it would have to be cold, icy even. Coke would do in a pinch, but barley and hops would be mana from the goblet of Zeus.

“Where are we going?”

Or was that a mixed metaphor? Maybe, but it would still be delicious, a cooling draught to relax the muscles and the senses. The moisture built up on the bottle would fall onto the hand while savage teeth ravaged that tender beef patty.

“Christopher!”

Latakia opened his eyes to blackness and felt his succulent dinner replaced with dried saliva. He sighed, shoved his pipe into his mouth and lit it. The flame from the match showed nothing but the bowl. No walls, floor, ceiling or friends.

“You know, the drier this tobacco gets, the easier it is to smoke.”

He drew on the stem until a plume of smoke billowed out. And then he paced, stepping and smoking, walking a circle in the magma floor. He watched as the soldiers blanketed the darkness — front, back, left and right — with the brilliant, yet still inadequate, illumination of their flashlights. He watched and he puffed and he thought, and the thoughts were coming easier somehow, but he still hadn’t found that one to move them forward.

While the others hurled suggestions like insults and dodgeballs, Latakia sipped his latakia. He listened; he considered; he smoked. The darkness surrounded him, but he found some light in the strangest of places, inside his brain. Without a word to the others, he walked with purpose to the bash brothers and grabbed both their flashlights. He held one in each hand and lifted them skyward, grateful he still knew which way was up. The light fell on volcanic rock, magma that matched the floor below it. Nooks and crannies, straight out of an English Muffin, filled most of the ceiling, but not all of it. It spread out before him, almost low enough that he could touch it without any more than a reach, but behind him, the ceiling curved quickly skyward.

“If I was looking for a big treasure, I’d head to where the room is bigger,” he said, and he returned his attention to his pipe. “Boy, do I like this thing.”

Jose and Asia glanced at each other and shrugged with a “what the hell could it hurt” expression. Latakia spun on his heels and shot his finger into the darkness.

“Alright, on we go!”

He marched, the ringmaster leading the parade into the big top. The parade followed reluctantly and more cautiously than the baton twirler at the front. Latakia took no notice of the pillars that kept the ceiling away from the floor, but Asia checked them over for markings. The pipe-led hero strolled by rocks and holes and possible hiding places without looking twice, but Rose and Gylden checked for anything lurking. He walked straight into the light of one flashlight, while the others fought for the second one.

And then he stopped.

The flourish was definitely unneeded, but that’s why he did it. The spin, the deep bow with hat in hand, it was overkill at best. At worst, it was… Well, Latakia didn’t even consider “at worst,” first, because he thought it was funny, and, second, because he now stood with his back to an enormous staircase leading into the darkness and certainly on to their destination. To complete his miniature victory celebration, Latakia spun silently back to the steps and began climbing.

His companions were equally silent. For Rose and Gylden, it was probably a lack of vocabulary, but Asia and Jose were not known for their stoic composure and hesitation to speak. They were, however, predisposed to extreme disbelief in their cowboy friend being more capable in these conditions than they fancied themselves. Latakia had disappeared and Rose and Gylden were nearly vanished when Jose finally turned to Asia with words in his mouth.

“After this, you can have him. I don’t have enough room for me and his head.”

The stepped quickly to catch up, despite Jose’s persistent limp.

“I wouldn’t want to break up a happy marriage,” said Asia. “And you two are so cute together.”

Jose blew a facetious kiss at her. Then he squeezed her shoulder.

“Hurry up, you guys,” Latakia’s voice erupted from above their heads and beyond their sight. “You won’t believe how right I was.”

Totems are just gargoyles in layers, but there is something more ominous about them when lit only by flashlight. The deep shadows in every crevice gave the carved eyes sharp contrast, exposed the razor-sharp wings, and added a glisten to the stone. Asia’s startled shout echoed off the chiseled faces.

“They sure are ugly, aren’t they,” Latakia quipped.

Jose stepped up next to Asia.

And he screamed.

“Oh, it’s just you, Latakia,” he said. “Hey, nice carvings.”

Chris laughed at Asia. Asia laughed at Jose. Jose laughed at his own joke. Rose and Gylden might have laughed on the inside, but they didn’t let it show. That would have been unprofessional.

Latakia was still puffing on his pipe and looking quite satisfied with himself over it. The smoke danced in the flashlights’ glow as Latakia turned his attention back to the statuary.

“We have what looks like a sun here,” he said, “and combined with the expression on these faces… hmmm.”

Asia stared at him, her hands on her hips and a look of amusement she couldn’t hide.

“This line here,” Chris continued, “this is the most important, the way it curves up and then down and then up again. It reminds me of a squiggle. From this line, we can determine that this is the entrance to an ancient Aztec temple.”

“And how, exactly, can you tell that,” said Asia, no longer able to hide her incredulity.

“Like this.”

Latakia stepped through the gateway and lit a match, holding it to a wooden torch on the wall. As he walked, he stopped periodically to light a new torch, and Asia stared in silence as the emerging light revealed twenty-foot-tall monoliths bordering a large room with an altar at its center.

“How… What…” Asia found that, in her astonishment, she couldn’t buy a complete sentence. “I…”

“You know he was probably already in there,” Jose said, but Asia was too flustered to notice.

Gylden bit a smirk from his lips. Jose saw it and smiled, but he let his friend keep this secret from Asia.

The monoliths stood tall and smooth, without ornamentation, which was in stark contrast with every other inch of carvable surface. Asia tried to mentally capture the images, but her memory was quickly overwhelmed. This find was worth a fortune, academically speaking, and she could spend a lifetime drawing the wealth from these walls.

Jose stood at the altar, probing it with his fingers.

“If they ever used this, they cleaned it really well,” he said.

“Well, Latakia, you’ve proven yourself worthy of a nickname,” Asia said. “I can’t believe you actually found it!”

Chris’s voice echoed from somewhere toward the back of the temple. “This isn’t the treasure!”

He was met with silence, and he waited through it until he felt their irritation.

“If I was going to hide a treasure, I build Disney World in front of it,” he said. “Consider this Space Mountain.”

Jose laughed. “So where is the treasure?”

Latakia stepped into the light, intentionally going for the dramatic effect. “It’s through the back door.”

He walked out of view, taking his torch’s light with him. The remaining adventurers fumbled for torches of their own, coming up completely empty. The soldiers, however, were prepared as always. Both of them filed out of the temple with flashlights blazing, and Gylden offered Asia a flare. With the added red glow, Asia saw the carvings in stark contrast. She outlined them all with her eyes, tracing the contours and taking guesses at their meanings.

“Jose, is that a falcon or a…” She turned, but Jose was gone. Her voice echoed off the walls for nobody but herself. Her eyes darted frantically for that back door. She found it tucked in behind two pillars, and she ran through it.

The tunnel walls were smooth, without anything more than a scratch, as if the walls were signifying she had changed direction and was now heading away from heaven’s embrace in the temple and straight into the jaws of hell. If it was hell, it didn’t want her to see anything, because the red glow on the walls was turning a dark maroon that Asia could barely see through.

And then the light went out.

Without letting an arm’s length between her and the wall, Asia let her hand guide her along, trusting the stone rising on both sides to guide her, eventually, to someone with a light. Remembering how quickly the ground fell away after her slide, though, Asia was taking her time, trying to feel the ground with her feet before taking the step. She hoped she’d catch up to them soon. She tried not to think about them already at the bottom of a pit somewhere ahead of her.

Just as she was getting settled in her system — rub hands, scuffle feet, take a small step, repeat — the walls disappeared. Of course, she already couldn’t see them, but now she couldn’t feel them either. She spread her feet, dropping gradually into a split, hoping her toes would find the walls that her hands couldn’t. She sniffed back a sob, and a moment later, the cave did the same. Maybe, she thought, just maybe she could channel the powers of a bat and find the walls through her own echoes.

“Hello?” she asked the darkness. Her raspy voice reflected off the cavern but gave her no clues.

“Hello,” she said, a little louder than before. Her echo was clear, but it told her nothing about where she should go.

“Hello!” she shouted, waiting to hear her voice come back to her. Instead, she heard only the flapping of wings and felt a rush of wind around her head. A high-pitched screech accompanied the onslaught, and Asia screamed along with it, cowering in the darkness.

A light blinded Asia. She pressed herself low to the ground and shielded her eyes. The light grew brighter or nearer. Either way, it was impossible for her to look at it directly. If she could have seen, she would have noticed that, behind the bright light, there was a dim red glow.

“I never realized you thought so highly of me that you’d bow at my feet.”

She looked up and could faintly make out the form of Latakia Billows, from his boots to that cowboy hat she hated so much.

“Not if you were the last man on earth,” she spouted.

“Not if you were the last man on earth, sir,” Latakia corrected.

Jose helped her to her feet, whispering some sort of apology, as Latakia and Rose’s flashlights turned back to the doorways they had been pondering.

Asia waved smoke away as she looked over his shoulder at three decorated doorways, each one adorned with a pair of animals. Asia took them in from left to right.

“The eagle snatches the serpent, the serpent strikes the wolf, and the wolf stalks the eagle,” she said. “It’s like a riddle.”

“More like a game of rock-paper-scissors,” Latakia said, “and it looks like there’s no best out of three.”

Rose lifted his flashlight above the door to show three large counter weights.

“As best we can guess,” Jose said, “when we open one door, two of the weights come down and seal the other doors.”

“Can we open all three at the same time?” Asia asked.

“We’ve tried,” Latakia said. “They won’t open if we push on more than one.”

Asia stared at the puzzle some more.

“So what do we do?”

Latakia took a puff on his pipe and filled the room with smoke.

“We pick a door.”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

Tobacco Video Game Review

2011-01-18T02:27:00.000-06:00

So you're already wondering what the heck a tobacco game review might be. I suppose that, this being the first I've written, I should explain it. I could, but these reviews are short and won't take long to read, so I'll let them stand for themselves.

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, PS3):

This is a great game. A near-perfect game, even. The landscapes of the old west are beautiful and haunting, regardless of time of day or weather. (Standing in a graveyard at night in the rain is particularly moving.) The story is good, although it is a bit anticlimactic. And the gameplay is simple enough for a video game rookie to enjoy while challenging enough for veterans. The game is a classic western with terrific acting and directing and enough storyline to keep you at this for weeks, even if you can't put it down.

But that's not what you're reading this to learn. You want tobacco, and so you should. Red Dead Redemption is littered with unqualified smoking (unqualified meaning it's not put in some liberal "context" to show how bad it is). The Marshal, the first major character you meet in the game, has a chronic cigar habit. It is rare to see him without one, but never once does he cough or show ill effects. The main character smokes the occasional cigarette, again without negative consequences, even being offered one by another character after a successful raid as the two spoke casually. There are stories in the local newspaper that show the miraculous healing powers of smoking, so it can be a little tongue in cheek, but the most prevalent tobacco reference more than makes up for it. Your main character, John Marston, has the ability to seemingly slow time as he focuses on the men he needs to gun down, but that ability is limited. To restore his focal powers, he need only chew tobacco. This quality of chewing tobacco has no negative side effects, even with repeated use (unlike alcohol, which makes you unable to walk up the steps).

Brütal Legend (Xbox 360, PS3):

This game is based around the acting of Jack Black, and I do imagine this is what his dreams look like. Black's character, Eddie Riggs, is a roadie from the error of "real" heavy metal, meaning the late 70s and 80s. He is leather clad and accented with the traditional headbanger adornments. The gods of rock transport him to another world, where he must defeat all manner of evil with an ax and an "ax" — he can either mow enemies down with the steal headed cleaver or brandish his guitar and kill them with the power of his rock, and yes, that does look as cool as it sounds.

But between bouts with skeletons and monsters, Eddie feels the need to light up a cigarette because… Well, because he's a bad ass, and we're better off leaving it at that if we know what's good for us. You do get an impression that the game, being a clear parody, is trying to tell you how not to act, but for not making the obligatory anti-smoking jokes, I salute it.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360, PS3, PC):

If you've ever wondered what kind of dungeon it took to house all the villains plaguing Gotham City, you can now find out first hand. Arkham Asylum, the game, puts the Dark Knight inside Arkham Asylum, the psychiatric hospital, where he must face all his greatest foes, from Killer Croc to Scarecrow to Poison Ivy to, of course, the Joker. Pretty much everyone in the Batman chronicles makes an appearance, even if it's only a cameo. The game heavily features Batman's stealth and detective skills, putting an emphasis on catching your prey by surprise. The visuals are beautifully gothic, often disturbing, and always engrossing, and the gameplay is unobtrusive in the story and atmosphere. You could loose your mind wandering the sanitarium to find all the little avatars left for you by your greatest nemeses.

This game also features my favorite tobacco reference of all the games I've ever played. During the story — don't worry, I won't give too much away — Commissioner Gordon is captured by the Joker, but we all know old Jim won't go down easily. To alert Batman to his whereabouts, Gordon drops his prized pipe, the one on which his initials are carved that he is never without. Over his in-suit radio, Batman has a lengthy discussion with the Commish's daughter about the value Gordon places on that pipe, including a bit of his history with it, and how it could only have been dropped as a clue for Batman to follow. But he doesn't stop with the pipe. On his way to Gordon, Batman follows a trail of bread crumbs in the form of Wild Country tobacco, Gordon's sole blend, proving that the Commissioner is not only a pipe smoker, but a codger too.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii, Nintendo DS, PS2, PSP):

Sadly, not all these reviews can be positive. Ghostbusters: The Video Game falls right in line with the movies, giving you some suspense with your sarcasm and banter. As the game begins and you fight some of the more recognizable characters of the movies, you can take a break from chasing the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on the upper floors of a New York skyscraper to take a drink from the water fountain. All the major characters, save Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, reprise their rolls with their trademark charisma while you take the roll of the fifth and newest Ghostbuster. It truly is like playing through Ghostbusters 3.

But the less things change, the more they never seem the same. Riding up the elevator of the Sedgewick Hotel, where the team encountered (and now must apprehend) the green goo'd Slimer, the "No Smoking" sign remains, but it only reminds us of what we're not seeing. The Ghostbusters have quit smoking. If you remember back, to the movies, Ray Stantz is a cigarette smoker. No more, though. The sole tobacco reference I've found is a pipe in the mouth of the ghost of a sea captain. Of course, I haven't finished this one, so finger's crossed, but it looks like you'll have to join the Ghostbusters for the fun and excitement, not the smoking.

Summary:

While we've become used to tobacco as an indication of foolishness or villainy, it's refreshing to find tobacco, even tobacco use, without the drudgery of some contextual life lesson about how dangerous tobacco is. In these games, the character would smoke, so the character does smoke. It's a refreshingly honest approach to a needlessly taboo subject, and it's about time. Contrary to what all those horrified mothers must be thinking, these games don't encourage smoking as much as acknowledge the habit. What it does represent to me is not that smoking is making a comeback, but rather that our culture is tired of the fight. Maybe the anti-tobacco crowd has found a new cause, maybe even one that they can use fact rather than doctored studies and public opinion to battle, and is leaving us smokers alone to enjoy our hobby below the 17th Parallel. Probably not, but I can hope, and I can hope while playing video games that feature people like me, people who made the choice to use tobacco and don't need to justify it to anyone.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-01-17T00:01:00.001-06:00

Episode XII: The Bottom

Without light or ground, gravity is meaningless. The stagnant air barely moved a hair, and Latakia’s hat stayed perched on his head. Smoke belched a little more heartily from his pipe, but the briar itself was still simple to clench. His satchel floated away from his side, but the strap stayed wrapped around his torso. Combined with a lack of oxygen, it felt distinctly like being in outer space — or at least he assumed — and then he realized he had been holding his breath since the floor disappeared.

He was falling for minutes or hours or days. In the sensory deprivation of the moment, it was easy to lose track of time, to lose track of self, if only for a moment. That moment ended when someone kicked him in the eye.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” he shouted, finally finding his breath.

Latakia had watched too many movies and read too many books where the bottomless pit did end, and ended with a million ten-foot-long spikes, one of which always had a skull still impaled on it.

The foot that kicked him made a terrible anchor with which to pull himself up, but pull he did. Latakia wasn’t sure if he was moving up or the combat boot-wearing soldier — whichever soldier it was — was moving down, but it seemed they were switching places, even with the soldier — whichever one it was — swinging wildly at whatever was crawling up his back.

The first hint that their situation was changing came when Latakia’s machete, still in its sheath, began scraping on stone. His backside followed soon after, and as he contemplated this progression, the soldier’s weight began weighing heavily on him. Loose gravel and stone rolled under his body, almost like quicksand, but he was skirting along the top rather than sinking into it. But this was no rockslide either, since the rocks weren’t coming with him, though, and if this hadn’t been made by primitive people, he would have sworn he was riding a makeshift assembly line.

The earth curved around him, while the surface kept pushing him along quickly. He was turning a corner and picking up speed, pinned to the ground like he was to the amusement park rides of his youth. But the physics that was holding Latakia to the thrill ride was also pushing the soldier, whichever one it was.

“I… can’t… breathe,” he managed to squeeze from his lungs, but it was a pointless declaration, as the soldier, whichever one it was, was in almost the same predicament as the cowboy.

Over the rolling of rock and the rush of wind, Latakia strained to hear the screaming of his friends. Misery loves company, but the shrill noises also told him they were still alive and riding the same ride.

He tried to think back to his childhood, but he could not remember any slide as long as this one, not even at the fancier amusement parks. His mind kept returning to the size of this tube, wondering if it would stay large enough to accommodate two people and hoping he hadn’t just jinxed himself.

He felt the tunnel open up, at least the part near his arms. There was still a 200-plus-pound soldier lying on him. Latakia tried not to feel too much like a pervert as he groped the muscle-bound man. He found what he was looking for not far from the pants zipper. He thought of all the dirty jokes he could tell if this was Jose, but he found the button quick enough to know he didn’t have to feel around anymore. With a click, he flooded his path with light. The rocks were set up as rollers, attached to spin freely and propel objects further along. He was sure he didn’t want to know where they were going, but he moved the flashlight further down the line anyway.

But there was no further down the line. It just disappeared over a cliff or into a hole. Wherever it went, Latakia definitely didn’t want to follow blindly. Frantically, he flashed the light randomly around the apparent cavern, looking for something to grab, somewhere to roll, or just a way to not fall.

The big guy on his stomach wasn’t making it easy, though. He started struggling as soon as he felt someone reaching around his utility belt. With a trained soldier fighting him, all Latakia could do was try to follow the bouncing light. He strained to see anything between the darkness. The opportunity showed itself oh so briefly. A small strip of ground along the right side looked large enough to hold at least the two of them, but it was coming up quickly.

Latakia wrapped his left arm around one of the soldier’s body parts — it might have been his neck, if he had one — and clamped his fingers on the hilt of his machete. With a natural flare, a spin and a twist to point the blade down, put it in position for Latakia to plunge it into the dirt. Gravity pulled their bodies against Latakia’s arm. His fingers burned with the strain, but he refused to let go. If anything gave way, it wouldn’t be him.

“Climb!” he yelled to the soldier, Gylden, as the hair would have proved if Chris was paying attention.

The large body scaled Latakia horizontally to safe ground, with only a few unfortunate placements of his feet. Then his bulky hands pulled the cowboy to safety. Gylden stood in darkness while Chris, again, fumbled for the flashlight, which was still where he left it, attached to Gylden’s belt. A woman’s scream rolled out of the slide. Asia was coming quickly. Latakia held onto the flashlight and reached his arm into the path of the rollers. As she slid into the open, Asia’s lungs were blaring that siren’s alarm, but her voice stopped short as the hand of salvation wrapped around her arm. As Latakia pulled her aground, Gylden grabbed Rose, who came down next, followed so closely by Jose that the Mexican was practically standing on the soldier’s shoulders.

Five people stood safely, at least for the time being, on steady ground, but Latakia wasn’t satisfied. He looked around the group, still grasping the flashlight, and back at the slide. There was a sound like a pin dropping and a dull gleam near the tunnel. Latakia leaped for it.

He curled a cowboy boot around the grip of his machete, still anchored into the ground. His body slid toward the hole or cliff or darkness. His foot slipped a little.

Jose grabbed him first, and then Asia grabbed Jose. Rose and Gylden grabbed Asia, and all four of them pulled Latakia back to safety. The soldiers both turned their flashlights on the ground.

“What did you trip on?” Asia asked.

Jose was on his hands and knees, feeling for the obstacle that sent his friend back into danger, his fingers dodging feet as they dragged along the dirt. A small, orange glow ignited above his head. Two flashlights pointed directly at the smug face of Latakia Billows, who was now contentedly puffing on the Peterson billiard. He pulled the pipe from his lips and his expression became puzzled.

“What?”

Asia placed her hand on the back of his head firmly enough that they all heard it.

The body-armor brothers returned the flashlights to the ground. With one search over, a new one began, one that would take them further along the trail or quickly to their deaths. Latakia plucked his blade from the ground. Before returning it to its sheath, he planted a kiss on the flat of the blade.

“Once again, my dear friend,” he whispered, “once more to the brink and back again.”

Asia stared at the tunnel, at least in the direction she remembered the tunnel being. The darkness may as well have sealed it for as well as she could make it out, not that anyone could climb back up that long slide anyway, let alone the drop at the top.

“I don’t suppose we’re getting out of here anytime soon.” Her voice was defiant and angry, but it trembled at the edges.

Jose came up behind her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders.

“Then it has to be forward,” he offered in his most comforting tone. She sighed. Neither of them moved for quite some time.

The soldier boys, meanwhile, hadn’t stopped moving. They had explored their little patch of dirt and found that the drop off at the tunnel extended as far as they could see into the darkness. At the near end, it butted right up against the wall. They were finally ready to report what they had found: absolutely nothing. There were two walls with no doors, the slide, and a ledge with no bridge and nowhere across the chasm they could see, let alone reach.

“Isn’t this the part where they expect us to use our brains?” Jose asked.

Latakia pushed Asia two steps forward.

“That’s your cue.”

“My cue was you running out of ideas,” she said, “or, more accurately, failing to find a first one.”

“Well aren’t you the brains and the brawn? Guess I’ll settle for being the beauty.”

“It would be beautiful if you could keep your mouth shut for just one minute.”

“Why? So you could kiss me? That ship has sailed, sister.”

“I…” Asia couldn’t think through her disgust, so she awarded this round to the man she knew she once loved, even if she was having trouble remembering the reasons.

“Give me that,” she said, enunciating each word in a staccato rhythm and snatching the flashlight from Rose with enough force to pull him off balance.

Careful to cover every inch of the walls, Asia painted the stone with light — up, over, down, over and over and over, pausing as needed to examine even the smallest oddity. There were holes created by roots, channels carved by water, scrapings from the claws of animals. There was no trace of any hand that may have formed this path hundreds or even thousands of years ago. In short, it was looking less and less like a mine and more like… trouble.

“Did anyone bring any food?” Latakia asked into the darkness. “I’m starving.”

The soldiers looked at each other, and Latakia saw it. “You boy scouts are always prepared. What do you have?”

Rose and Gylden said nothing, did nothing, gave no clue to show if they were or weren’t holding.

“Remind me not to play poker with you too.”

“You shouldn’t play poker with anyone,” Jose offered. “Have you forgot that last game yet?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Latakia knew his comeback was beyond weak, so he threw in another jab at Asia. “I still bet I go home with the girl.”

Asia made it to the tunnel and the slide, finding nothing to help them along. She had almost managed to ignore Latakia until that last line, and she turned to put an end to it.

“Christopher Billows, you are the sorriest…”

Her voice trailed off, as did her attention. The rock that had been plain, ordinary, completely lacking in clues, now had a sense of shape and design. She moved her head up and down, side to side, and did the same with her flashlight. The cracks lined up, with only a line or two out of place from centuries of wear. It wasn’t English, but it was writing. Asia found some comfort in finding something recognizable in this foreign world, and she read the words aloud.

“The path is closed. The exit lies ahead. With eyes closed, leap into the darkness.”

The group remained silent as Asia finished reading. The message may have sounded less ominous if it wasn’t echoing off of the chamber walls, but it still wouldn’t have inspired a lot of hope.

“So we have to jump?” Latakia’s voice was oddly upbeat and in no way reflected the mood of the group. “Straight out, do you think?”

Asia flicked her light into the vast emptiness and then back. Along the way, the light passed over a running figure, a man sprinting toward the chasm. She flashed the air again to catch Latakia at the apogee of his leap of faith. And then he began to sink. The cowboy drifted down, even with the group, and then further down. Asia’s flashlight illuminated only him, and they watched in horror as he sank and sank and then crashed.

Latakia belly flopped onto a ledge of solid rock. His ribs hurt. His face hurt. His knees hurt. He felt his lip for bleeding just to make sure he really had remembered to put his pipe away this time.

Jose called down to his wounded friend, lying about a half dozen feet below them. “Why didn’t you keep your feet under you?”

“Because no one else could pull it off with such flare.”

His hands pushed him off the ground, and he struggled to upright himself but resigned himself to crawling for the next few mintues. The soldiers’ combined flashlights, however, couldn’t show what he had landed on.

“Looks like it’s covered in black paint,” Latakia said.

He scuttled around on hands and knees, trying to find the extent of the ledge. “Looks like there’s no bottomless pit. I don’t think you can miss this one. It pretty much covers… Oops, there it goes.” His hand found no ground when he neared the end of the slide. “I’m glad we didn’t wait until the ride came to a complete stop.”

Latakia’s muscles screamed fiercely as he made them lift him up. The others were slowly lowering themselves down, careful to have their feet almost to the lower ledge before dropping.

“This is how smart treasure hunters do it,” Asia called over her shoulder before letting go of Rose’s hands.

Chris only laughed under his breath, an annoyed and irritated laugh, and he muttered to himself, “Walk it off; walk it off.”

From the lower vantage point, Gylden’s flashlight picked up an archway leading of to the… He pulled out a compass to make sure it went off to the west. He and Rose exchanged some cryptic hand gestures and plunged into the new section of the maze.

Asia handed Latakia the flashlight she had taken off Rose before turning to follow the soldiers.

“Are you coming, slowpoke?” Jose asked.

The wounded cowboy continued to test his joints, his bones and his muscles.

“I’ll catch up in a minute,” he said.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-01-10T00:00:00.000-06:00

Episode XI: The Long Way Down

There was nothing but air under Jose and nothing he could do to alter his situation. There was nothing to do but fall and take it all in. The air brushing past his hair, his stomach riding a roller coaster, the knot in his gut pulling straight down. Unlike the others, though, that last sensation didn’t let up. The tugging feeling kept yanking at his intestines. He wondered if everyone felt that sensation as they fell or if that was just Asia being hauled behind him. He thought he had almost figured out the reason for that tugging when he felt the sudden impact he knew was coming, a solid thud against the back of his head. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as he expected.

He opened his eyes, wondering what heaven looked like. He saw a brilliant sunrise and a sky painted in autumn. A large object moved in front of him, a face, maybe, and a familiar one at that. Jose always guessed he would recognize God when he reached the hereafter. Despite the sudden regret for all the masses he missed, peace overcame him. Heaven had opened its gates to him, and an eternity of bliss awaited him. Then God spoke to him.

“That’s what you get for climbing faster than me.”

Jose didn’t know that God was climbing that particular mountain, or that he had passed Him. He was confused, and he was getting a bit dizzy.

“Come on, buddy, let’s help you get back on your feet.”

“On my feet?” Jose asked, looking down at them. Beyond, he saw more sky. He blinked and saw the rope still attached to him, stretching off into a blur. He rubbed his eyes and looked one more time. As he stared, a figure came into focus.

A dark figure.

A woman.

Asia.

It looked, at first, as though she had fallen and hit bottom the same as he had. As he took in the image, however, he noticed that Asia was not lying prone on the ground but rather gripping it as hard as she could. Her left arm was plunged up to her elbow into a larger crevasse, and her right arm was wrapped around a larger outcropping. She was still holding on. She never fell, and that meant Jose never fell, at least not all the way down. He had tried to save her life, and she wound up saving him. He looked up… well, down. Whichever way he was looking, he was staring directly into the mocking eyes of Latakia Billows.

“Come on, buddy, let’s try to get you upright.”

Latakia wrapped his arm awkwardly around Jose’s neck and started to pull. Jose was upside down with his back to the mountain, a great vantage point to find new ways to view the world but a terrible position if your goal is to reach the top. It was also a decent way to make it to the ground really fast, so he gratefully took Chris’s help as they struggled together to turn him around.

Asia’s eyes hadn’t opened since her panic set in, not even when the rope pulled tight around her waste and lifted her feet from the rock. If her arm hadn’t been wedged into the wall, she might not have been able to hold on, but as it was, the mountain held her. She was too preoccupied with making sure her hands still hadn’t let go to notice the rope was no longer dragging her body downward. She shuddered when something touched her shoulder.

“Easy now, girl,” Jose said, climbing up beside her to the left. “You saved me. No worries. Now I’ll try to save you. Again.”

The Aztec warrior at the top of the mountain, having been forced out of Jose’s mind by the near-death experience, sprang back into his thoughts. He pointed to Latakia, who was on Asia’s right, pointed to his eyes, and then pointed to the summit. Chris nodded, and they pulled themselves up as silently as possible. Jose slid his fingers over the crest of the mountain and lifted himself slowly. Latakia grabbed hard and launched himself onto the ledge. Both of them saw the same thing.

Nothing.

“Well, that was pointless,” Latakia said, pushing himself to his feet. “Give me your hand so we can get on to the next adventure.”

Jose topped the cliff on his stomach and stayed there, spinning around to grip the rope still connecting him with Asia. Chris knelt to grab the rope as well.

“Asia, you have to let go of the rock,” Jose yelled down to her.

“Grab the rope,” Chris shouted.

It was a small miracle when Asia tilted her face skyward and opened her eyes. Chris and Jose smiled down at her. Tears glistened on her cheeks. The boys coaxed and prodded her to move her hands to the rope. They promised they would lift her to safety. They swore she’d be fine. She believed them, but she couldn’t move her hands, her fingers that were cemented into place on a rock that could take her life as easily as it had spared it.

The rock moved against her, sliding down along her chest that heaved with every panting breath she took. After a slow second, the movement stopped. Then it began again.

“Better grab the rope, Asia,” Latakia yelled, “or your arms will stay in those cracks. We’re pulling you up either way.”

Panic pulled her arms from the rocks, but anger made them climb again. Jose continued to tug on the rope, but Latakia saw the fire in her eyes and took his opportunity to back away from the ledge.

Asia was fuming when Jose pulled her to the mountain’s even peak, and she lunged immediately for Chris. The cowboy was briefly tempted to play the matador. A quick "¡Olé Olé Olé!"and he could have sent her right off the cliff and off his back at the same time, but logic won out against emotion, not without a fight, and he decided to let her tackle him. They were both safer if she wasn’t running around violently above a 3,000-foot drop. They hit the ground hard. And then she punched him hard. And he laughed the whole time. And she punched him harder.

“Come on up, guys!” Jose shouted to the soldiers on the ground. “And bring my hat!”

He checked through all his pockets, making sure his hat was the only thing that had fallen loose during his climb. Two small “plinks” echoed off the rock near Jose’s feet. He looked to see two small hooks dragging along the rock, following a steel-looking string. They caught on a crack and somehow burrowed themselves in. The whine of small motors preceded Rose and Gylden to the top. Each was grasping a handle that, by the time Jose realized what they were, contained the entire length of the line. Gylden also held Jose’s hat.

“Hey, Latakia, these guys have been holding out on us,” Jose shouted. “They have these rope thingies like Batman!”

“That’s cheating!” Latakia yelled through a feminine, but strong, stranglehold.

Rose shrugged, and Gylden smirked. Their voices remained restrained, back to silence, but there was mockery in the speechless grins of the soldiers.

“So you saw that whole mess on the side of the mountain,” Latakia pressed. “That was all the result of serious training that you wouldn’t want to ever try yourselves.”

The smirks continued.

“On to the next feat of amazing… uh, ness,” said Jose, taking the mapstone from Latakia. “So are we here?”

The question stumped them. In the center of the Mesa was a small bulge, like the center of a sundial, and a square rock shrine, at least by the looks of it, stood nearby.

Latakia snatched the map. “It says the small bird and the big bird takes a dump on the entrance,” he said, “so keep your eyes open for anything with wings.”

“Give me that,” Asia said, swiping the stone from Latakia. “You’re so full of crap, you see it everywhere.”

Latakia stuck out his tongue at her as she read the markings on the stone map.

“When the eagles lay their eggs, the dove will open the door at sunset,” Asia read. “It’s not really very clear.”

“There’s a dove!”

Jose’s shout made the small white bird flutter uncomfortably on its perch. Its seat was a rather odd looking stone that looked more like a needle’s eye. The sun had set, but the sky was still dimly lit.

“You mean we missed it,” Latakia whined. “Do we really have to spend the whole night here just to see what happens in the morning?”

“What if we do?” Jose chimed in, “Is it even eagle egg-laying season?”

Asia was pointing at the sky and ground and mountains, mumbling and muttering to herself.

“So during the season when the eagles lay their eggs, the sun would set right over… there.” She was pointing at the dove and its perch. “And the sun would shine through there and hit this mountain,” she traced a line from the bird to the shrine, “here.”

“Wait a damn minute here,” Latakia fumed. “Are we in the damn Hobbit or something? When people finally hear our story, they’re going to feel ripped off.”

“Well,” Jose offered, “at least Tolkien was a pipe smoker.”

“He was?” Latakia took no time in unwrapping his compromised tin. “Well then this just seems right, doesn’t it.”

The soldiers smirked at the disorganization of the adventurers, but Latakia was lit and puffing.

“This is much better now,” he said. “Must have something to do with it being dried out a little.”

“So now put that pipe to good use,” Asia said, cringing and crinkling her nose in disgust. “Play a little Sherlock Holmes for us.”

“Wrong story,” Lataia said, “and wrong pipe, but if we look at this through…”

“Enough of this!” The shout from Rose froze them all, except for Gylden, who was rooting around in his bag. The box he removed had a handle and, even in the growing darkness, seemed to glow just a little bit. Then Gylden pushed a button on the box and blinded them all.

Flashlight seemed an inadequate term, as the device shown with the glory of a small sun. The cowboys and Asia shielded their eyes and tried to blink away the spots.

“We are tired of waiting,” Gylden said, holding the light to the shrine and adjusting the beam. It looked like the light was changing colors, but it could have just as easily been the assaulted eyes playing tricks. With the sound of a tree trunk snapping in two, a section of rock separated from the sundial and opened a passageway. Though his vision was still compromised, Latakia ventured inside first, followed by Asia and Jose.

“I can’t see a thing,” Latakia said, beckoning Gylden to bring the flashlight, and Rose tagged along.

“There’s nothing else on the mapstone, so the treasure should be here,” Asia said. “Do you think this was a vault? Someone must have gotten here first.”

Latakia was disappointed. Angry even. And he was about to break into a string of profanities to prove it. All five of them were squeezed into the vault, searching the walls for clues, but they should have been looking at the door. Without warning, it snapped shut, forced closed, it seemed, by some mighty, invisible arm. A high-pitched scream echoed off the rock walls. It wasn’t Asia’s. She started to tell whoever was screaming to shut up, when the floor fell out from under them. All five of them screamed as they plummeted downward into the deepest darkness they had ever seen.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2011-01-03T00:00:00.000-06:00

Episode X: The Face of the Enemy

The darkening spot in the sky could have been a cloud forming. It could have been a waft of smoke, although smoke signals wouldn’t have been much more comforting. But the sky’s shaded patch was an army’s worth of arrows, raining down on the adventurers, three of whom were still playing the deer in the headlights.

When the soldiers yelled “incoming,” it had only served to make the three friends look up. Rose and Gylden were already safely behind stone outcroppings, but the others were not moving. Rose made a bullhorn with his hands and lips and shouted, “Run!” While the first cry froze them in the path of certain death, the second one shook them from their fixation.

Asia pushed hard on Chris and sprang backward, tumbling into a cartwheel-double backflip sort of thing that propelled her out of harms way. Chris, finding himself falling anyway, thanks to Asia’s push, went with the motion and rolled like it was the third step after stopping and dropping. Jose, still hindered by a gimpy ankle, went armadillo, pulling into the tightest ball he could manage and hoping to squeeze between the arrows. With his arms covering his head, sound was muffled, but he could have sworn he heard his name.

When the first arrow landed in dry dirt, Jose felt it more than he heard it. And then the second pierced the earth, and a third, and a fourth, and through the pitter-patter of wooden rain, he could have sworn he heard his name again.

Asia kept screaming, but she didn’t know what she wanted to come of it. If he moved, he might get hit, but the same could happen if he stayed put. She was torn, and she screamed again.

From the outcroppings, Rose and Gylden fired at shadows, but none of the bowmen ever showed their faces. They looked and waited for a second volley. At least then they would know where to point their guns. Rocks were beginning to slide again, but at least this time the mercenaries were careful not to bring the avalanche down on themselves.

As soon as the last arrow fell, Chris and Asia sprinted toward their friend. He still hadn’t moved from that ball he curled into when the attack started. Their strides kicked loose the arrows, snapping most of them, leaving the heads lodged in the ground. They kept their hands raised to protect their faces from splinters. They reached Jose together, and Asia tried to pull his arms away from his face.

She gripped his wrists and tried to ease them apart. They didn’t move. She tugged, but his arms stayed put. With as much strength as she could muster without hurting him, Asia pried at Jose’s arms, but they didn’t budge. Giving up any thought of harming him, Asia yanked as hard as she could, but this time there was no reluctance. Jose’s arms gave way easily, and, free from the nuisance of resistance, Asia hurtled backward. As she fell, she felt the sting of arrows snapping underneath her. Behind the scratches, her beauty and anger still shined from her face. She raised her head to see Jose laughing at her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were Latakia.”

Jose sat up and patted down his body, looking for holes or leaks. Finding none, he pushed himself to his feet, finally getting a chance to test his newly bandaged ankle. Liking the results, he reached for his boot, only to find the shaft of an arrow emerging from the shaft of the boot. He slid his embattled footwear past the fletching to freedom and fingered the hole the arrow left behind.

“Air conditioning,” he said, shrugging and smirking.

With what seemed like reluctance, Jose plucked the arrow from the ground and removed his other boot. Carefully, he lined them up and shoved the arrow through both boots, through the original hole, making the pair match again.

“I didn’t want to be lopsided,” he said, putting his shoes back on.

Chris laughed heartily from deep in his gut. He laughed until he doubled over, gasping for breath between guffaws.

“I knew you loved me,” he said. “You still love me, Asia Craft.”

She glared at him.

“You pushed me out of the way,” Latakia said, still grasping at his sides. “You shoved me away from danger.”

Now Asia laughed. “I pushed myself away from danger. I didn’t care what happened to you.”

The soldiers started edging away from their barricades, their guns still aimed at every shadow in sight.

“You’re glowing the same way you used to,” Chris said. “Every time you’re around us it happens.”

“That’s not a glow, Christopher Billows. It’s me trying to hold in my vomit.”

“The only thing you’re holding in is that you’re still crazy about me.”

“You got the crazy part right, but you picked the wrong person to accuse of it.”

“We just got shot at by an army of Aztecs, and you’re both standing here arguing,” Jose interrupted. “Now tell me who’s crazy.”

The two ex-lovebirds took a quick look around them to remember there was a good reason to move along.

Chris reached into his pocket for the mapstone, but he realized something else was missing.

“Where’s my tobacco?” Latakia yelled, reaching into all his pockets and coming up empty. He had his machete, the map, a revolver and his pipe, but his tin of Squadron Leader was gone.

“It’s not like you could ever light that thing anyway,” he caught Asia saying under her breath.

Jose laughed, and Chris spun around to hit him with a wry, sarcastic retort, but Jose was holding his tin, kind of. He was holding it shish kebab style on the end of an arrow.

“Looks like their shooting was twice as good as we thought at first,” Jose said, holding in his laughter about as well as that tin would hold in tobacco.

Chris shoved Jose as he grabbed the tin, plugging it with his fingers and demanding a handkerchief that he tied like a diaper around the tin, tight enough to keep the tobacco from leaking out.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, starting to march off ahead of his companions.

Asia grabbed the mapstone from Latakia and scowled at it. If she was reading it correctly, and she was rarely wrong about anything that old, their journey was about to turn vertical. Lit brilliantly by the setting sun behind them, the mountain glowed like a chalice, like the Holy Grail itself, and, as she would for any sacred relic, Asia trembled before it. She tried to focus on each next step, but her thoughts were all overlaid with an image of her falling off that first cliff. Rose and Gylden reached the rock wall first and began finding hand and footholds, but Latakia called them back.

“If we’re going to be hanging on the side of a mountain for target practice, I want to make sure someone can shoot back,” he said.

Jose was six feet up, already, and Chris wasted no time in joining him. The lone woman on the journey, however, had yet to set hand or foot on the rock. The surface felt icy or oily, whatever it was, it kept her from getting a secure enough grip for her tastes.

“Come on, slowpoke,” Latakia yelled from a few feet above her.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out of her head. Jose swung his hand at Chris but, still being comfortably in the lead, didn’t even brush Latakia’s hat. So Jose kicked him. Chris fell the few feet between himself and the ground with relative grace and put his hands on the mountain to start again. Jose was climbing back down. Asia still had her eyes closed when Jose touched level earth again, and she didn’t see him take a rope out of his satchel and wrap it around himself, securing it with a knot that left plenty loose to attach to something else. She did notice when he started wrapping the loose end around her. She stared at his hands as he looped the rope around her waste and her shoulders and her legs, tight enough that she wouldn’t slip free, but lax enough to give her freedom to move. With a gentle hand, Jose lifted her gaze to his.

“We get to the top together,” he said.

It wasn’t the words, and it wasn’t really the rope. If Asia could have articulated her thoughts, she might have said it was a sense of responsibility, the fact that someone else’s life depended on her, that got her climbing. She found her grip and thought about Jose. She lifted her feet off the ground and thought about the rope. She pulled herself higher and higher, thinking the whole time about what might happen to Jose, not her, should she not make it to the top.

Latakia was shocked just to see Asia climbing. He never expected she would pass him. She didn’t notice this feat, however, so Latakia started to point it out, ready to say something like, “Wow, it’s a long way down,” in his typically sarcastic delivery. His mouth was open, and he had drawn the breath needed to get it all out, and then he saw Jose’s eyes, wide and focused and frightened and angry. Latakia closed his mouth and returned to climbing.

Without the distraction from Chris, Asia’s climb went quickly. She and Jose left Latakia well behind in their determination not to be hanging from the side of a cliff as soon as possible. Jose knew they were close to the top when he started feeling the wind, blowing from above as it topped the mountain. It felt refreshing against his sweat-drenched face, and he allowed himself just a moment to relish the breeze. Then Asia screamed.

Luck or destiny or sheer will had kept her from losing her grip for the first 95 percent of the climb, but her hand gave way before she could reach the top. Her left hand and both feet were still firmly attached to the mountainside, but the rocks crumbling from under the fingertips on her right hand were enough to force her to put a stranglehold on the mountain. Jose knew she wasn’t going anywhere unless he could help her. If he was lucky, there was just enough rope between them for him to reach the top and pull her to safety. Asia kept testing new places to grip, hoping to find one that would keep her from falling no matter what, and Jose didn’t want to distract her with yet another concern, so he silently continued his climb.

He found the climb easy. “A little too easy,” he said to himself, laughing inside his head.

He reached up and felt nothing but air. This was the end, the last pull. He just needed to find a place to sink his fingers. He found nothing but smooth stone., no ledges, no dirt to dig into. He was almost ready to backtrack and find a new place to try, but he didn’t want to give up just yet. He reached one more time, but this time, he found help. Someone grabbed his hand and began to pull him up. Jose lifted himself as much as he could so he could see his helper. On top of that mountain, the setting sun painting him orange and red, was an Indian in full war paint holding a large bow.

With a horrified yell, Jose pulled himself away from the figure that had been haunting him since he arrived in Arizona. Desperation to escape the Apache warrior removed his other plight from his mind. He forgot he was thousands of feet above the ground. Pulling wasn’t working quickly enough, so he pushed. He pushed with enough strength to free himself from the grip of that hand.

He also pushed hard enough to free himself from the mountain.

As he fell, he passed Asia, still clinging to her rocks, and he knew he was about to pull her to her death. And then the rope between them pulled taut.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-12-27T00:37:00.000-06:00

Episode IX: Falling down

Whoever wrote the map on the stone had been very forgiving. It could have led from mountaintop to mountaintop, mercilessly hammering the treasure hunters with unrelenting obstacles. After that first peak, where they could basically see the path they would be taking, they went on parade down the middle of the canyons, and all the hawks and snake and whatever else hanging out on the mountain could throw confetti, wave flags and blow noisemakers if they wanted.

It was just as well. After her harrowing ordeal on the mountaintop, Asia was walking slower, taking smaller steps, and hugging the walls a little more tightly every time she found herself more than a few yards above the valleys. A few times, she had already turned sideways to inch past a cliff to which no one else had given a second thought.

Chris, meanwhile, was preoccupied with keeping his Peterson lit. He’d stop every few steps, cup his hands around the bowl, and try to get a lasting light, but he’d only have to repeat a few steps further on.

“You’re sure living up to that nickname, Latakia,” Jose said, and if Chris hadn’t been concentrating on his lighter, he would have noticed a slight but unusual tremble in Jose’s voice.

It was hard to tell where the solders were looking, their eyes hidden behind stereotypically mirrored aviator glasses, but if they had seen what Jose had seen, they weren’t doing anything that might give it away.

What Jose had seen was a shadow that didn’t belong where it was, poking out from a grouping of shrubs. From the shape, it was either a large animal or a person, but he didn’t have long to examine it, because his blinking eyes wiped it from existence. He might have written it off as coincidence or just a trick of the eyes, but he saw it again a few minutes later, only this time on the other side of the canyon, poking out from behind a rock outcropping. He still couldn’t see what was making the shadow.

Chris paused from his pipe long enough to say, “Are we there yet?” It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. It wasn’t even the first time he’d said it on that side of that particular mountain. He had said it at least a dozen times, but they all had zoned out for at least a few of them.

But this one was going to be the last time, and Asia, feeling safely on the ground at the moment, took a hard swing, landing her fist on his arm. “Ow!” he cried, bending over in mock pain.

An arrow swished through the space Chris had occupied just moments before, bouncing off the rocks with a wooden snap. Jose, spinning quickly toward the shooter, saw only that same shadow. Dell Cornell’s two grunts, who still hadn’t said a word since that first mountain, silently drew a Glock handgun each and less than silently emptied a clip each into the rocks behind the shadow.

“You idiots!” screamed Asia in a panicked voice, as she ran out into the exposed valley.

Small rocks bounced off Latakia’s hat, and he knew the bigger ones were coming. He didn’t dare to see what the two soldiers were grunting about, streaking into the open, not far behind his former girlfriend. Jose was shouting somewhere behind him, but the pitter-patter of falling rocks drowned out his voice. The soldiers found their feet and charged off toward the arrow shooter, but the rocks were already falling on that side of the canyon too.

Chris reached Asia and turned to look for the rest of his companions. The two brutes were backing toward them with their guns still drawn, but he couldn’t spot Jose. Chris asked Asia where he was.

“I thought he was with you,” she said.

Chris ventured back toward where he and Jose had been standing, far enough to spot a cowboy hat on the ground. He lunged for the hat and found Jose not far from it. Jose was trying to pull his foot from a crevice, where it was pinned down by a large rock.

With four hands, the rock started moving quickly, but a stone softball landed on Jose’s stomach, and a toaster-sized rock fell near Chris’s hand. He shouted and jerked away.

“Asia,” Jose yelled, “we need a real man over here!”

Chris grabbed the rock and shoved as hard as he could. “Quit your whining and get the hell out of here,” he said as the rock gave way.

He pulled Jose up enough for the Mexican to regain his feet, and they ran together until all five of them were out of the rockslide’s way and on the look out for another arrow flying from a shadow. The bald soldier lowered his gun and stood at attention.

“Sir, the shooter did not emerge from the rockslide,” he reported. “He is certainly buried under the rocks.”

Chris took a step back and looked the soldier up and down. “You know, it always surprises me when you talk,” he said.

“Always?” asked Jose. “This is only the second time they’ve opened their mouths.”

Asia pushed the cowboys aside. “You know, boys, we don’t even know your names yet,” she said.

“Ma’am, Private T.J. Rose,” the bald one said. “Ma’am, Private Jefferson Gylden,” the other said.

“Well, that was official,” Chris said.

“Alright,” Jose said, “Private…”

“Yes, sir,” they both answered.

“This will be interesting,” Jose said, “but let’s get moving before anyone crawls out of the walls again, and this time, let’s keep the guns holstered.”

With a renewed focus, the quintet walked along their path a little slower, and it was only partially because Jose was limping. “Seriously, Jose, we can stop and tape that ankle up for you,” Chris said. “At least let us find you a walking stick,” Asia added. The privates, as usual, said nothing. “I can make it until we find shelter,” Jose said. “Don’t forget we have dead Indians following us.”

Some subjects can turn a conversation rather quickly, and nonliving Native Americans are a natural example.

“What do you mean by ‘dead?’” Chris asked with a hesitant chuckle, hoping on his own coffin that it was just a joke.

At the word “dead”, the soldiers held their weapons a little straighter, a little more ready, so that nothing was needed but the pull of a finger. Asia put a hand firmly but tenderly on their shoulders.

“You know, guys,” she said, “if they really are dead, your guns won’t be much help.”

They looked at each other, at their guns, and back to each other, and in the end, found a way to hold their weapons with even more purpose and an even greater sense of immediacy.

In his best campfire voice, Jose began telling of the shadows living among the stones. It wasn’t that Jose didn’t take the threat seriously, but he still didn’t know what he had seen, and while he wanted his friends to be more cautious, he didn’t want to inspire panic until he knew there was nothing left to do. Although Jose’s best scary voice was amusing, it did still inject some creepiness into the tale, but the groan that crept into his inflection with every other step he took, as he put weight on that ankle he had yet to wrap, was ice down the spines of very nervous treasure hunters.

Chris and Jose, even with their backgrounds in finance, were adventurers at heart, and nothing precluded them from buying into things that were categorically impossible. Soldiers, of course, have a long history with superstition and the supernatural, going back to Bernardo and Francisco speaking with the dead king of Denmark, and something was definitely rotten in the State of Arizona. But even as a student of the linguistic sciences, Asia was an anthropologist and a scientist and not one to be taken so easily by fear and a lack of better explanations.

“So now it’s a haunted treasure?” she asked with a flare of Hollywood storytelling. “The ghouls and the goblins will rise and protect what is theirs. Beware to the heroes. Beware to the strong of heart. Beware all who would seek the Dutchman’s Mine.”

She laughed at them all, laughed for the way their steps had grown more and more careful, laughed at their suspicious glances at every shadow, laughed at the way their fingers nervously worked the grips of their weapons. But she laughed hardest of all at Chris still clenching his pipe despite his inability to light it.

“I haven’t let go of this, either,” Chris said, holding out the arrow. “Laugh at it!”

She did laugh. “One silly arrow and you go all week kneed. Maybe I should carry it, just in case your arm is too weak.”

“Just don’t carry it too high above the ground,” Chris retorted.

Asia started with a comeback, but her throat tightened and held back the words. Her eyes welled and she turned her face from him. As well as he could without losing his balance, Jose shoved his elbow into Chris’s ribs. Chris returned the assault with a queer look, featuring one eyebrow raised as high as possible. He gave Jose a friendly shove, but it was too much for the hobbled Mexican, who stumbled to one knee. He tried to push himself back up, but a soft hand gently held him down.

“It’s time we taped that ankle,” Asia said in her softest voice. “And you won’t talk me out of it this time.”

Layer after layer of thick white tape wrapped around the slightly swollen joint, from his toes to his calf until it wouldn’t bend. The solution was imperfect, but it allowed Jose to keep using his ankle, which was especially important, because he knew the journey was going to get harder, and he had no intention of backing down now.

“Thanks,” he said with an embarrassed grin.

She returned his expression. “You’re welcome.

Chris looked at them quizzically until all three forgot where they were.

The soldiers, however, did not.

“Incoming!” the two shouted, lowering their weapons and running for cover. Chris, Asia and a still-shoeless Jose looked up to see a sea of wooden arrows falling out of the sky.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-12-20T01:53:00.000-06:00

Episode VIII: Atop the Mountain

“Well, Latakia, it’s been a week, and that nickname is all you’ve found.”

Jose had found himself a little outcropping of rock and was now squeezed under it to get the most of its shadow. It’s not that he was avoiding the work, but he’d given up on success. Asia was already asleep, having given up not only on the mission but also on their leader.

“Let it go, Latakia,” Jose said, pulling his hat down to doubly shade his face.

Chris had long since given up stable footing for a chance at uncovering a buried door or symbol or clue. He was knee deep in loose rocks precariously close to a cliff at the highest point of the Superstition Mountains, the focal point of the mountain range of the same name. If he fell, he would die splayed out on Peralta Trail.

This was the most likely home of the Lost Dutchman Mine, on the eastern side of Lost Dutchman State Park, but he was having as much luck as the scores of treasure hunters that had been there before. They had studied the rock and matched the landmarks, and it led them to only one place, but Chris was standing in that very spot with nothing to show from it but a farmer’s tan and a reddening neck. His shovel rested against a rock wall, as he had long since reverted to using his hands to clear rocks and trace cracks that could have been, but never were, outlines of doorways.

Jose reached into the bag and pulled out Chris’s pipe.

“Hey Popeye,” he called, “come get your spinach.”

Chris stared at him briefly, trying to reconnect with the world beyond the rocks he had been throwing.

“I guess we should try to think about this a little,” Chris said, accepting the pipe and loading it with a Latakia-laden Proper English. The leathery plume that erupted from the bowl stirred Asia from her sleep.

“God, you stink,” she said.

The smoke billowing out of Latakia’s pipe wasn’t the only cloud rising. Jose spotted the park rangers heading up to the mountain. Strictly speaking, treasure hunting wasn’t encouraged. Strictly speaking, it was outlawed. Chris sank low to the ground, hoping the rangers wouldn’t make the climb if they didn’t see anything. He slid over to the pack that held the mapstone. The line traced between mountains to what was clearly the tallest point. It made it easy to find the destination, but it seems the destination was just another legend, another joke of the Peralta family or Joseph Waltz or whoever really started these stories.

As he studied the stone without progress, Chris sipped at his pipe as lightly as he dared, just enough to keep it lit so as not to send smoke into the air. Asia stirred, and he held out his hand to keep her from rising. She glanced over the edge to see the park service had sent a second car. They might have appeared as hikers if not for the shovels. Everything else fit in their packs, but Chris had insisted on speed, on foregoing collapsible shovels for standard ones that could be obtained more easily.

All three of them were awake now and straining to hear any sound that might tell them if the rangers were coming or going. Jose broke the silence.

“You know all they’ll do is give us a ticket, right?” he asked.

“Whoa, now,” Asia countered. “We’ve heard all about that crazy sheriff in Arizona.” She looked directly at Jose as she continued. “They think any of us is illegal and they’ll probably shoot us all.”

“Yeah, but I was born in Jersey City,” Jose spat back at her, “and maybe you look a little too much like you were born in Kenya.”

Chris shushed them both.

“Guys, the park rangers don’t work for the sheriff,” he said. “This is a state park. But if it makes you feel better, you both look like Canadian border jumpers to me.”

As carefully as she could, Asia peaked over the edge of the cliff. One vehicle was driving away. The other sat motionless. She couldn’t see the driver. She tried to listen for sounds of footsteps. Instead, she heard a 10-year-old dragging a stick along a picket fence. Then it was a Ford Pinto in serious need of repair. But the volume kept growing, and the ground started to shake. Chris was grabbing the equipment, and Jose was securing the supplies, but it was all Asia could do to slide herself further and further from the mountain’s edge.

A gust of wind shook them all and pushed around their gear. It caught the shovel bag Chris was struggling to fill and sent it tumbling, tumbling straight toward Asia. The wind and the bag slapped at her, pushing her precariously toward the cliff. The ground dropped out from under one leg, and then the other.

Panic wrapped its hands around her throat and blinded her eyes. She flailed her sculpted arms, but the muscle couldn’t help her find anything to grab. Fear warped her senses, keeping her from seeing hope but making every unstable pebble under her body feel acutely like the mountain pushing her over its edge.

The wind continued to push, and she could feel the edge under her stomach. Asia opened her mouth to scream, but the wind forced her voice back. In those brief moments, she began to resign herself to a long, long fall.

Four hands reached her at once. Jose was on his feet, his heels dug into the little bit of dirt covering the rock, while Chris was face down on the ground, with his fingers tightly wrapped around Asia’s wrist and his foot hooked around the biggest rock near enough to provide some anchor. The steepening angle of the wind started to work in their favor. The blast of air striking them from above added to the little traction they had been able to find. With cries of desperation, the men pulled Asia to level ground, and they lay there on their backs, panting and staring at the helicopter hovering above.

A rope ladder unfurled from the metal bird, fluttering out like confetti in a tickertape parade. Chris “Latakia” Billows realized he still had his pipe between his teeth, and it felt snagged a little as he removed it. He held it between himself and the sky, dumping what little tobacco was left, only to see the sky through the black of the stem.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, but he shrugged off his disappointment when he thought about how much worse it could have been and wondered how long the button of a pipe stem would take to go through his digestive system.

A pair of boots slapped the ground next to him. The man standing over them, dressed in black that was made only darker by the sun behind him, may not have seemed bulky had the three not still been lying down. Another man — like the first, he could only be described as a soldier — was speeding down the ladder. The pair was an almost identical match, except one hadn’t been issued a full head of hair. The first man bent down to help Chris to his feet.

“Mr. Cornell sent us,” the bald hulk said in a voice that was gruff from too much time in the desert or too little time being used. “He said you’d need some help.”

His friends were standing again, and Chris fought off the distraction of wanting to dust off Asia’s jeans for her.

“What makes him think that?” he asked the brute. “Wait, how does he even know where we are?”

The soldiers said nothing. There were no smiles or smirks, no gestures, no answer of any kind. They just turned around and raised their heads to catch the gear being dropped to them. The five of them let the silence build until it was as undeniable as the hot Arizona sun bearing down on them.

“At the risk of jeopardizing this scintillating conversation,” Chris blurted out, “we’ve already hit a dead end, and we’re heading home.”

The bulk brothers only stood still, giving no indication they intended to ever speak again.

“We’ve searched this whole rock,” Chris said, “and we’ve found as much as you.”

Still, there was no reaction from the soldiers, only the cold, dead stares.

“Well, there is always…” Chris reached into his deepest pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Can you get your helicopter back?”

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Randall Lewis was a nerd’s nerd. His glasses were always broken and usually smudged. If he was awake, he wore an apron over a button-down flannel shirt. He was always surrounded by paper. He had his notes, his journals, his reports and his comic books piled around the room in some form of organization understood only by him. To fit five people in this room, they needed to do a little redecorating, moving stacks of paper, each with its own paperweight, and piling them where they could find any space level enough to hold them.

Even with the extra space, the five of them still couldn’t stand without pushing some stacks precariously close to falling. The best bet was to sit, just a little, on top of the stacks, because they’d be less likely to fall sideways while being pushed downward. Randall entered the room and immediately lost his cool, not that he really had any to start with.

“What have you done?!” he yelled with his white hair standing on end, looking like a cross between Albert Einstein and Jerry Lewis.

Chris and Jose hid their silent laughter behind their hands and Asia glared at them for their insensitivity, while the two brutes still showed no evidence of a personality. Randall scrambled around them, trying to restore the papers and paperweights to their previous positions, even to the point of shuffling his guests out of the way. Asia, still scowling at the boys and their reaction, reached out a hand to calm Randall.

“We can get more room if you combine the stacks,” she said, lifting a paperweight to add papers beneath it.

“Stop!” the mad geologist yelled. “Those papers don’t go with that artifact!”

The realization palpably struck them, and each of them, including the soldiers, turned to the paperweight closest and seized it.

“What is this writing?” asked Jose, turning his rock over in his hands and understanding it no better with each turn.

Randall shrieked and scrambled to grab each artifact and return it to the pile.

“Don’t touch them!” he yelled. “You’re going to damage them!”

Christopher gave his up with a laugh. As the scientist replaced his artifacts, Chris reached into his bag.

“Since you like rocks so much, I was hoping you’d take a look at this one,” he said.

Randall, whose bulging eyes were only made larger by his bottle cap glasses, slowly reached his trembling hands toward the mapstone. Greedily, he snatched it and shuffled over to a desk, which they only now noticed behind a wall of papers and artifacts. With a dramatic flourish, Randall swiveled a mounted magnifying glass between his searching eye and the stone. The inspection did not last long.

“Oh, this one?” Randall asked. “I’ve seen this one before.”

Chris pulled the letters from his pocket.

“We know; we’ve read what you sent to my grandfather,” Chris said.

Randall gave him a dismissive wave.

“If you’ve read my letters, then you already have your answer.”

The scientist flipped the rock toward Chris, whose fingers barely snatched it before it fell to the floor.

“But it doesn’t work,” Latakia Billows said. “It leads to the highpoint, but there’s nothing there.”

Randall’s face showed a combination of mockery and disbelief.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You’ve found the beginning of the map. It doesn’t lead to the high point. It leads from it. You are meant to see the path before you take it.”

Chris returned the rock to his bag and turned to go, with all four others following suit. They threw their thanks over their shoulders as they rushed back to work, eager to find out where that new information would take them.

“Wait,” Randall called after them. “You need to be careful.”

The door closed. The scientist was alone again.

“You don’t know what happens in those hills,” he said to the empty room.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-12-13T00:01:00.000-06:00

Episode VII: Fire and Smoke

The pile of spent matchsticks in the ashtray were starting to look like the mountain Jose was reading about, and Chris lit yet another one.

“Why can’t I get this damn thing to light!” he yelled across his porch.

He sucked at the stem of his Peterson a few times until he saw smoke, and he peered over Jose’s shoulder at the computer now attached to a small satellite dish.

“The Superstition Mountains in Arizona are the supposed location of the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine,” Jose read, “but so much of the details are fiction, speculation and exaggeration that it has become difficult to believe the historical details.”

Chris stared at a picture of the mountain with its sheer cliff faces and rocky foothills and wondered if he was sure what he was getting into.

And he puffed on his pipe.

And he got no smoke.

Again.

“Dammitall!” he yelled, and he grabbed another match.

He had gone through so many that, out of desperation, he started using the white-tipped versions, the ones that actively resist lighting, And why not? His pipe didn’t seem to enjoy being lit either. Jose ignored the outburst and kept reading.

“So there’s a Jacob Waltz,” he said, “or it might have been Weitz or Welz or Walls or Welzer or any number or names, or there might have been a few Jacobs with last names starting with ‘W’, but they find him or them dead or near dying, and he either has some of the gold on him or he tells them about the gold, but he doesn’t do a good enough job, because no one finds it.”

Chris, finally having got a match lit well, was working on getting some of that flame into the pipe.

“Why the hell didn’t I buy a lighter?” he asked.

“Because you thought matches were manlier,” the Mexican replied before continuing with the mine story. “It looks like there’s questions over whether or not this Waltz guy found a claim or stumbled onto someone else’s, or maybe someone gave him the claim or at least the location of the claim.”

“I got it going!” yelled Chris from behind Jose. “It’s smoking, and I’m not letting it go out this time!”

He puffed and puffed on the stem through his clenched teeth until the smoke was really flowing, and then he took a big sip right into his lungs. The cough that followed started a shower of unburned tobacco all over both of them. A second cough knocked the pipe loose from its perch between his incisors and canines, but it clattered on the table relatively unharmed. Jose wiped the bits of Prince Albert off his shoulders and shook off his hat before returning to his research.

“If no one can agree on any of this, how are we supposed to find it?” he asked.

Chris, fighting back another cough, wagged his finger in the air.

“If they had agreed on it, how would it still be there for us to find?”

Jose cocked his head to the side in though and then nodded it. “Good point,” he said, and he returned to the computer.

The brown cloud rising up from the dirt road seemed even more a foreboding omen than it did just days before, and Chris stared it all the way in while absentmindedly repacking his pipe.

“You know,” Jose said, “people have gone missing looking for this treasure.”

“You mean besides my grandfather?” said Chris, still fixed on the incoming car.

“Yeah, sorry, but about forty years ago, this guy named Henry Jones went missing in there, and they never found him,” Jose said.

“Well, then he never found the gold either.”

“Or maybe he found it and ran off somewhere.”

“Then it couldn’t have been much of a treasure in the first place,” Chris said, finally putting his pipe back in his mouth and reaching for a new box of matches.

The car had almost reached the house, but Chris still couldn’t make out who was inside. It was a nondescript car, a silver, maybe very light tan, foreign model, probably with average luxury, power and fuel economy from the looks of it, just like the kind you rent at the airport. His eyes told him it was another lawyer, but his gut was churning with the fear that this visit was much worse, or maybe that was just because he inhaled his pipe smoke again.

The black combat boots that hit the ground when the car door opened almost looked intimidating. It might have been the car they were coming out of, but they looked a little feminine. Long, black braided hair and a dark face, partially hidden by wraparound sunglasses, emerged above the window. She was beautiful and haunting and Chris was more nervous now than he was when he didn’t know who was in the car.

“I figured it was about time I see what kind of hell hole you left me for,” Asia said, shouting over the breeze. “I don’t know if I’m happy or sad that I don’t see a woman’s touch anywhere about this shack.”

Chris clamped his jaw around the stem, more to hold his tongue than the pipe. He wasn’t really scared of her, but he didn’t want to hit a woman, and he definitely didn’t want to be hit by one. Even dressed in jeans and a loose T-shirt, she still looked more like the boxer Chris met in New York than the academic he left nine years earlier.

“So have you had any feminine beauties grace your doorstep?” she asked.

Chris pried open his teeth just enough to ask, as politely as possible, “Is there a reason you came here, other than to continue the abuse you dished out in the city?”

Asia looked him squared up with him and looked dead in his eyes.

“I’m going with you,” she said. Chris balked.

“Going with me where?” he asked, trying to sound as bewildered as he could.

“Did you forget I translated that box,” she asked, “and that I still know you well enough to know you’re going after whatever your grandfather was trying to find?”

Chris still tried to maintain some pretense, though he was running out of excuses.

“And what makes you think you can help?”

She ran her fingers along his cheek, soft and sweet, and then she jabbed him right in the bruise under his eye.

“Do you forget who gave you that?” she asked. “Do you forget your grandfather probably had a reason for using a box carved in a language you don’t understand? And one that I understand?”

Chris started to retort, but he was stunned into silence by Jose speaking up from his seat in the shadows.

“At least you know she’s tough,” Jose said, “first hand.”

Asia laughed and punched Chris in the arm.

“Looks like we’re taking three,” she said. “Now where are we going?”

Jose turned back to the computer. He figured that, by the end of the week, the other two would be killing each other or sleeping together. Either way, he made a mental note to pack earplugs.

Chris managed to get a bit of smoke flowing from his bowl of Prince Albert, and he puffed hard to keep it going. He held two fingers and a thumb around the bowl until they got a little tender from the heat, switching, then, to a cigar grip that he had practiced often on his cheap cigars. Still he continued to puff, and while the pipe didn’t start glowing red, the tobacco screamed in pain by turning bitter on him.

Chris wrinkled his face and turned the pipe upside down, dumping it over the railing of the porch. His pocket bulged with a tin he found hiding in his regular cigar shop, and, in desperation for something more accommodating, he pulled it out.

The biplane on the label made him think of adventure, while somehow calming him at the same time. He tried to wrap his mouth around the brand name.

“Gaiwath? Gowith? Gahwith? Goh…”

“Go smoke it already and leave us alone,” Asia hollered over her shoulder.

She and Jose were huddled over the computer, close enough that there was no need to speak loudly, and therefore no reason Chris should have been able to hear it. He had become so preoccupied with his smoking that he had forgotten the others were planning his treasure hunt. That was fine, because he couldn’t stop trying to figure out if he was saying that name right.

He pressed his fingertips into the lid’s lip and pulled, but it did not give. He pulled harder with no success. He tucked his fingernails around the lip but only succeeded in pulling them, a little painfully, away from the skin.

Chris’s eyes darted around the porch for something to help him, and his eyes fell on the hilt of his machete. He put the tin down on the table and drew the blade from its sheath. He thrice twirled it in his right hand, switched to his left for three more, and shifted back to the right. He stared at the tin, pondering the best way to open it, and then he gave it a shot. With a flare that no one noticed, he swooped up the tin, tossed it in the air, catching it between the flat of the blade and his left hand. Then he awkwardly attempted to jam the point of the machete under the lip of the tin’s lid and pry it off, looking much like a wounded duck in the process, and he was just in time for Asia to turn and spot him.

“Maybe you should take up ballet again,” she jabbed. “You’ve definitely lost any grace you had.”

Chris dropped the tin on the table and jabbed his knife into it in frustration. He was about to offer his snappiest comeback since the two had reunited, but a whisper of releasing air caught his ear. With curiously delicate hands, Chris wiggled the blade free from the table to which it had pinned the tin. The lid lifted with the machete, leaving only the ribbon cut tobacco, gratefully offering itself for sacrifice by fire.

But this tobacco was different than the last, sweet and smoky and rich. His pipe gladly accepted this new varietal, and he held it between his teeth as he struck the match. With eager puffs, he brought the tobacco to a light. Of course, it took no time before Chris’s impatient draws had his tongue burning along with the leaf.

Disgusted with himself, Chris put his pipe on the table and wandered over to the computer, where the others were doing the work he should have been doing.

“These other rocks definitely look like maps,” Jose said, looking at picture of four square stones, two heart stones and one cross, “but why would you put a date on something you never intended anyone else to find? Why would you instruct someone to study the labels and drawings if only you were going to use it? So I say these are fake.”

“I’ll make the same point I’ve been making,” Asia retorted. “If any of these maps or clues or whatever on the Internet were true, someone would have found the treasure.”

Jose spun in the chair to look at her directly.

“But my point,” he said, “is that these stones are so widely accepted for a reason, and it might be that they are just an adaptation of actual history, where a rock did lead the way.”

Asia put her hand behind his neck and leaned down, her face inches from his.

“That’s the longest way you could have gone to say you think our rock is probably real.”

Jose spun away from the intensity of her eyes.

“I won’t argue that,” he said, “so let’s try to overlay our rock and see where it takes us on the map.”

Chris turned back to his pipe. The Billows men were never planners. They were interpreters and adventurers and improvisers. All except his father, that was, who preferred his skies to be white or gray or beige and made of wood fibers.

The men who shared that Peterson also shared a desire to live and lead and never look back. And suddenly, Chris realized two things. First, he realized he was mentally rambling, and then, in his mind, he rambled about his ramblings. And second, he realized his ramblings had taken his mind off his pipe, which seem to be smoking quite well and gave him a satisfying flavor. He began a celebration in his head, but it ended quickly when the smoke alarm that once was his girlfriend let him know what she thought of his new hobby.

“God, you stink,” Asia spat at him, but he only puffed out his chest.

“That stink,” he said, “is the latakia, and you’ll be pleased to know I’ll be smoking it from here on out.”

As Asia waved her hand past her nose, Chris reflected on his latest decision. The tobacco was decent, maybe even good. He definitely didn’t hate it, but he wasn’t yet certain he liked it. He did like that he could taste the tobacco and not just the ash and burning tongue. And he also liked that Asia hated it, and for that reason alone, he dubbed this his new favorite tobacco and vowed to get more of it before they set out.

“Just call me Latakia Billows,” Chris said.

Jose tugged at Asia’s arm and whispered, “Ten bucks says he’s sick of that nickname within a week.”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-12-06T11:02:00.000-06:00

Episode VI: The Answer

The kinder, friendlier military pretends it has softened. It pretends its fists aren’t clenched. It pretends it’s not ready to smash down upon you with blinding and ferocious power.

In short, the color of the carpet might be pretty, but it still tastes the same when a man in uniform drives your face into it.

The color of the carpet rubbing up against Chris’s face was a deep forest green. It tasted like plastic and dirt, a bit of sweat and maybe just a taste of urine.

He cursed Jose for staying outside.

From behind the elbow pressed into the back of his head, a voice said, “The lieutenant colonel wanted to make sure you didn’t leave before speaking with him.”

Chris may have led the way to the conference room, but the burley man behind him was certainly steering. When the door slammed behind him, though, Chris looked up to see this was no generic conference room. It was an office, with three chairs around a desk, two smaller ones for the visitors and a larger one in plush leather for the soldier. He recognized the photos on the wall, pictures of camaraderie and victory and good will and all that stuff that sells the new recruits, but there was one man at the center of all of them, and he had an awfully familiar face.

Chris sat down in the good chair and positioned himself to look out the window at the skyline but still keep the corner of his eye on the door. He leaned back until he worried he’d tip, and then he shoved a cigar in his mouth and lit a match.

The door swung open, and a voice said, “There’s no smoking in here.” Chris brought the match to his cigar and, through gritted teeth, said, “There is if you want to talk to me.”

He heard the click of a pistol being cocked, but he went about the business of lighting his tobacco.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Chris said.

There was another click, and the voice said, “You are right about that.”

Chris smiled and puffed hard on his cigar. And then a flash of silver streaked in front of his face. He turned away from the door to see his cigar pinned against the wall by a standard issue Army knife. Chris sat forward slowly with his hands in full view.

“So, should I call you Lieutenant Colonel?” he asked. “Or should I call you Dad?”

A fully-uniformed Lt. Col. Josiah Billows strode up to the desk.

“I don’t figure you’ll be staying long enough to call me either.”

Chris stood, and the two men stared at each other in as uncomfortable a silence as they could muster. Chris broke the silence.

“Why is your birthday written on these letters from Grandpa’s study?”

The colonel looked at the paper and thought for a short second.

“That may be my birthday, but that’s not why he wrote it down. It’s his account number at his bank uptown. The old fool never remembered that it was my birthday too.”

Chris stared hard at the letter. He could see the differences between the handwriting of Randal Lewis, the author of the letters, and the script used to ink those numbers.

“But,” Chris asked, “why would he write it here?”

The colonel turned his back. “You could ask him if the damn fool hadn’t gone and gotten himself killed in some godforsaken hole where no one would ever find him.”

Chris looked around the office.

“Looks like you’ve finally settled down,” he said. “I wonder if it makes mom feel better that you would have been there for her eventually.”

Josiah spun back around and slammed his fist on the desk and shouted, “You’ve certainly got all the answers for someone who was only a child when the questions were being asked.”

Chris wriggled the knife until it came free from the wall.

“I suppose your right,” he said, flipping the blade in his hand. “I was too young to know what was happening when we lost Mom, but do you really know how old I was when you lost the rest of your family?”

He laid the knife on his father’s desk and walked toward the door.

“I suppose you’re going to follow after him… him and his ‘you are the answer’ line he used on you so often,” the colonel said, “and you’ll probably get yourself killed in the process too.”

Chris turned his head. “What of it?” he asked.

Josiah pulled a chain from around his neck. “You’ll need that at the bank,” he said. At the end of the chain was a key, very old and very plain. Chris nodded and left, walking in silence until he reached the street.

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For as long as he had been waiting on the sidewalk, Jose still resisted his urge to immediately ask questions. They nodded to each other in silence, even as pedestrians strode past them and between them and around them.

Chris still had the chain with the key in his hand, but he reached now to put it in his ever-present satchel, alongside the letters and the box and the pipe.

A hand landed on Chris’s shoulder, and he heard someone chuckle.

“Hey buddy,” the voice said, “nice purse.”

The face that went with the voice was unshaven and unwashed. He had bits of trash stuck in the beard, a cracked plastic cup in his hand, and a general smell of vomit, exhaust and roasted squirrel. Chris noticed nothing but the hand on his shoulder and that shit-eating grin.

He swung his fist as if he could punch the hobo through the wall and into his father. The bum failed to even hit the wall, but he flew backward into a trashcan, knocking it over.

A few passersby stopped to scoop up the refuse and return it to the uprighted trashcan. Most kept walking without pausing their conversations with their cell phones. A few even stepped over the homeless man who was now part of the streetscape. They had places to go, and this was one of the nicer resolutions the city had seen.

Chris stepped over to the guy he punched out and pulled him up by the hand. As the man scuttled about to pick up any tattered clothes he may have dropped, Chris turned to walk uptown. He turned his head to find Jose.

“You as hungry as I am?” he asked.

New York lacks nothing, especially places to eat. Any doorway is a potential gateway to exquisite cuisine, but Chris didn’t enter any of them. He walked up to the nearest hot dog vendor and ordered one with kraut and mustard.

“You know those things are almost as filthy as the pretzels in Philadelphia,” Jose said.

“That’s what gives them their flavor,” Chris said through a mouthful of stale bread and pork product. “Hot dogs are one of those simple pleasures,” he added, starting to stroll north along the street, “just like a smile from a pretty woman and going with Grandpa to the bank. He’d pick me up from school every Monday to go to the bank with him and grab a hot dog along the way. You know, I swear that’s where the whole thing about me being the answer started. I’ve missed those days ever since he and Granny moved to New Mexico, but I understood him wanting to be closer to his work.”

Jose walked alongside him, working on his own hot dog and wishing he had thought to grab a soda too, although he was glad that looking for the next street vendor gave him a distraction from Chris’s ramblings.

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There had been a definite upswing in style since the last time Chris had been to the bank, barely able to see over the counters but tall enough still to see the basket of suckers just out of reach. Then, it had been nothing but orange and brown and yellow shag everywhere. Now it was the nondescript, non-offensive boring white and light blue everywhere. But certainly the computers were a welcome addition from a system that relied on files and organization and memory and lots of valuable space wasted on paper.

Chris didn’t know what to expect, so he asked for the manager. Better to wait now, he thought, than to wait later. An older woman walked over, smiling from the moment she appeared. Her gray hair was short, curly and playful, setting off a youthful exuberance that belied her age. Chris gave her the account number.

“Theodore Billows!” the manager exclaimed. She looked up suspiciously. “But you’re much too young to be him.”

Chris gave the standard look he perfected in the months following his grandfather’s disappearance, a measured combination of grief and condolence, recognizing their loss as well as his own.

“Oh,” she said, quickly crossing herself, “but that must make you little Chrissy. You used to come in and ask so politely for the purple suckers. You probably don’t remember me.”

The light bulb going off over his head lit Chris’s face.

“I do remember that smile,” he said. “I remember the pretty lady who always smiled.”

Jose, who had been standing so quietly off to the side, jabbed Chris in the shoulder to bring him back to the present.

“Oh, yeah,” Chris said, breaking away from the memory, “did my grandfather have a safe deposit box or something here?”

The woman tapped at the keyboard. “He does, but you have to answer a security question first. It’s been a while since we had these, but… oh, I remember this one. Do you have the answer to the security question?”

Chris waited. And waited. And waited.

“Well, what’s the question?” he asked.

She giggled a little, like she did all those years before.

“That was the question,” she said. “Do you have the answer to the security question?”

Chris fidgeted for a brief moment.

“Wait!” he cried. “Wait! You don’t mean me, do you? Am I the answer?”

The woman laughed, and Chris started to figure it out.

“This is what that was all about? All this time I wondered what answer I was, and I’m his pin number?”

Jose slapped him on the back.

“It’s a lot better than being his phone number,” Jose said, “or he would have had to trade you in when he moved!”

The three of them were still laughing when the safe deposit manager made his way over, but Chris still felt a little confused about the whole thing. The path along which the last few days had led at times seemed a little more than coincidental, as if his grandfather’s box had only punctuated a destiny his grandfather set out for him, but this latest puzzle piece could have just been convenience or it could have meant Grandpa had been laying out this plan for a long time. He had trouble coming up with answers, because he kept returning to the same question. What had his grandfather been doing when he disappeared?

The kindly old man was another Chris vaguely remembered from his childhood sojourns to the bank with Grandpa, but either Chris had grown, which was definitely true, or the old man had shrank, which was almost definitely true, because it now seemed as if their statures had reversed.

“I remember your grandfather,” the man said. “He was a good man, what little I knew of him, but he definitely doted on you plenty.”

His hands shook as he pulled down the box belonging to his grandfather. It was a rather large one, and as Chris reached out to help steady the box and the old man, he realized whatever was locked away had some weight to it. The old man slid the box onto a cart, despite Chris and Jose’s offers to carry it, and wheeled it into the viewing room, and he left them to their business.

Chris emptied his satchel onto the table, spreading out the box, the letters and the pipe. He was hoping a pattern might emerge. His father’s key fit the lock, and Chris held his breath as he turned it. He lifted the lid as quickly as he could, which seemed like a snail’s pace. He reached in and pulled out a rock, a large rock, but still just a rock.

He turned it over in his hands to see markings on it, but he couldn’t even tell if they were right side up, let alone decipher them. He expected to find answers, but he couldn’t seem to avoid new questions. Jose took a turn reaching into the box and found an old record, what they remembered vaguely as a 45, and a small record player.

“Walter Brennen?” asked Jose. “Isn’t that the guy that the other guy wanted naked pictures of in… in… Good Morning Vietnam!”

Chris shrugged. “That sounds right, but what does that have to do with anything?”

They found an outlet in the room, and Chris offered silent thanks to the record player for starting.

“Dutchman’s gold, oh, Dutchman’s gold…”

The record warbled about the way the boys remembered records to do if they hadn’t been treated with care, but the words came through clearly enough.

“In the Arizona desert stands a giant of earth and stone, mighty Superstition Mountain with its mystery and its gold.”

The cowboys just looked at each other.

“A miner, out prospectin’, found his fortune and his fame; found the gold of Superstition, just plain Dutchman was his name.”

The noise drew the old man back in.

“Oh, the Dutchman was a gambler, and a party was his fun, but he kept his precious secret, never trusting anyone.”

Chris noticed the old man was humming along with the music.

“And in death, he is laughing, for the grave his secret holds, and the mighty Superstition keeps the Dutchman’s yellow gold.”

Chris stopped the record.

“Do you think this is what Grandpa was after?” he asked with a bit of a grin on his face.

The old man, not realizing the importance of the moment, said, “Every time your grandfather was in here, he was whistling that tune. I’m surprised you don’t remember it.”

Chris held up the rock again. He turned it, and then turned it again, and then he saw it.

“Jose, this is a map!” he yelled, loud enough to be heard, if not totally understood, in the bank lobby. “This map goes to the treasure in the song! So the box was to hold the photo, and the photo led us to the letters, which I’ll guess are about this map and this treasure!”

He felt smug in his accomplishment for a moment, at least until he looked back down at the table.

“So what the heck is this pipe doing here?” he asked.

The old man wandered over to the table and picked up the Peterson.

“Oh, I remember this one,” the man said. “I admired this one so much that your grandfather gave me one just like it, but this one is definitely his. A Peterson Irish Free State, which would make it 1920s or ‘30s. It’s a classic billiard.”

Chris sighed. “Yes, but what does it have to do with anything else here?” he asked.

The old man looked around the table for a second and then back at Chris.

“I wouldn’t think they’d have anything to do with each other,” he explained. “Your grandfather was very fond of his pipe. Back when he was coming here, you could still smoke inside, and he invariably had a pipe in his mouth. He took such pleasure from it that he would give a pipe to anyone who showed even the slightest interest. I’m sure he just hoped you’d smoke it and enjoy it like he did.”

The old man reached into his jacket and pulled out a red pouch.

“It’s Prince Albert,” he said with a quivering voice. “It’s the same tobacco he gave me so many years ago. I’d be honored if you’d take it. I’d feel like I was paying him back somehow.”

Chris took the pouch and shook the man’s hand. He gathered the box, the letters, the photo, the stone and the record player and got them into the satchel until they at least wouldn’t fall out. Then he picked up the pipe and his new tobacco, opening the pouch and filling the bowl. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches. The old man ran over, gesturing as if he was telling them to keep the noise down.

He looked up at Chris and said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t smoke in here.” Chris winked at him, and the two left the bank laughing.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-11-29T00:00:00.008-06:00

Episode V: Naked Cowboys

“The pollution must have gotten much worse since we left here,” Chris said, twisting to see Jose struggling to keep up amid a stream of walkers. “Everyone’s got a cough,” he said, pausing to puff on his cigar, “but I wonder if they’re coughing at us to warn us of something. Maybe they think we should wear a mask.”

Jose smacked Chris on the shoulder, partially to let him know they were no longer separated by waves of pedestrians and partially to slap him out of the bumbling hillbilly role he was starting to put on.

“You know you’re an idiot,” Jose said, and then he pointed down 8th Avenue. “Lets head this way. That traffic jam should help us get through the intersections.”

The pair skirted around the tail end of a bus sidestepped a honking taxi, avoiding the steadily oncoming pedestrians also weaving their way through traffic. For nearly a decade, the biggest city Chris had braved was Albuquerque, and even that was a rare event. But he could still tell his skills of a diehard New Yorker hadn’t faded, mostly because all the noise was. The roar of traffic, the multitude of voices — now talking to their cell phones instead of each other — and the omnipresent construction melded into a wall of dull sound. Rather than overwhelming, Chris used the sonic barrier to isolate himself from it all, letting it combine until it was white noise preventing all the noise from penetrating the sound of his own thoughts.

The lights, however, still had a way of penetrating. After walking more than a dozen blocks, the cowboys stepped into a neon garden. A dozen signs lining the street told, often in one word, that a completely separate world existed inside the buildings. Chris didn’t recognize anything on the signs. They had all changed in the years he had been gone. But he did know what they meant.

“Jose, how the hell could you let us walk the wrong direction all this time?” he shouted at his companion. Jose just threw his hands up in the air and started walking toward Broadway. Chris reminded himself to forget about using his urban instincts. He may be able to block out sounds, but his internal compass no longer worked when the city was vertical.

Times Square is one of those rare locations in New York where what isn’t there speaks almost as loudly as what is. In the theater district, the skyscrapers are constructed of LEDs, and the walls scream in blinking colors. There are tourists watching the lights, and tourists watching those tourists, and a few sadistic New Yorkers watching it all. Times Square is where everyone wants to be unless they’ve spent any time there. It’s not surreal for the way it is treated as a sanctuary, the Holy Grail of tourism, or because night makes it look as though all the flashing lights are floating without any help. It is surreal because Times Square makes itself feel simultaneously as the center of the world and the gates of Hell.

Chris walked up to a man who, like him, was wearing a cowboy hat and boots. Unlike Chris, he was wearing nothing else. This nearly naked cowboy made Chris realize just how naked he felt himself. He reached to scratch an itch on his back, where he usually kept his machete, and one on his hip that was normally covered with his revolver.
“How do they call this a jungle,” he asked, turning to Jose, “and not let you go armed?”

As tough as he felt his wilderness life had made him, Chris had to admit that a country mile didn’t have anything on a New York block, not in rush hour traffic. His feet were swollen, and his ankles were growing unsteady. There was a blister forming just behind his middle toe. More than anything, he wished for his horse, and the mounted police galloping past didn’t help his mood.

Because Chris showed no signs of doing it himself, Jose hailed a cab.

“Admit you’re not a local anymore and get in the damn car,” the Mexican said to the cowboy, who was looking torn between comfort and pride.

Chris convinced himself and got in, only to find that progress had somehow reached the cab companies too… sort of. He and Jose found themselves staring at a television screen mounted to the back of the front seat. Above the screen was a Plexiglas barrier. Chris wasn’t sure if it protected the driver from the passengers or vice versa, but it protected no one from the smell of bleached mold that had befallen this vehicle. He put a cigar in his mouth and lit it.

“Hey!” came a voice through the barrier. “Hey, you can’t smoke in here!”

Chris crushed the cigar on the bottom of his boot. “It’s not the worst thing you could breathe in here,” he said.

Chris’s sense of direction had taken a serious hit in the nine years he’d been away. As the taxi driver turned left and right and left to reach a destination that should have been a straight shot, Chris was incapable of determining if the driver was lengthening or shortening the drive. He felt completely lost when the cab stopped long before reaching the business district. Chris shot a raised-eyebrow look toward Jose.

“I have to make a quick stop,” the Mexican said. “I made a bit of a promise.”

The pair, still clad in leather and denim and flannel, stood out like Tourette’s at a funeral, finding themselves in a super-trendy New York gym. The mirrors lining the walls trembled in time to the bass-heavy techno beat and the clanking of steel weights coming back to earth, accompanied by the steady hum creeping in from the exercise bikes, treadmills and elliptical machines. More than their clothes, though, Chris and Jose were set apart by being the only men in what was clearly a female-only gym.

From behind him, Chris heard, “Can I help you?” but before he could respond, he found himself shoved forward by whoever owned the voice. He spun around to see a rainbow of fury, the left jab a product of many hard years in the ghetto and the right hook powered by the strength needed to escape to a better life. The uppercut, however, was personal. Chris was vaguely aware of hitting the floor and only slightly more conscious of the figure standing over him and saying, “Welcome back to New York, Chrissy.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris woke to find he couldn’t see. His limbs were heavy and his face was numb, and he couldn’t see a thing. Echoes of whispers crept into his ears. His body ached and shivered, and he saw nothing. Slowly, and with more than a small effort, Chris lifted his hands to his face to find an ice pack draped over his eyes. Gratefully, he tossed it aside and turned his attention toward making his eyes focus.

Above him, Chris saw two forms, the shapes of two people he knew he should be mad at, but he could only manage anger for one. From the floor, he took a half-hearted swing at the scrawnier of the two.

“You set me up, Jose,” he accused.

The shadow shrugged. He propped himself up on one elbow, rubbing his eyes with his hand and hoping that wouldn’t make him see double.

“Well, Asia,” he said to the other form, “I guess I finally owe you that explanation.”

A decade earlier, Asia Craft was standing in front of a mirror and introducing herself as Asia Billows. She was a bookworm, spending most of her time in doctoral anthropology classes or in the university library. It was only by pure chance that Chris met her. He was scouting a frat pledge doing a certain act in the library stacks that could have gotten them all in trouble. If not for Chris, Asia would have walked right into the middle of that act, and Chris parlayed his “rescue” of her into their first date.

The short story sees their relationship blossom into an engagement, but it never went any further. When Chris’s grandfather disappeared, they put the wedding on hold. When Chris disappeared a year later, the wedding was off. He had left a note. It said he loved her, but it didn’t mention New Mexico or why. She still had the note, and she had pulled it out and dripped tears on it the night before she went Mike Tyson on him.

Chris knew he had been away for a long time, but this was not the girl he remembered. Her muscles were sinewy. Her clothes were made for style, function and to show off the results of the work she did in the gym. Most telling, her hands and wrists were taped, as if she were about to put on boxing gloves or, from the way Chris felt, had just taken them off.

“Chris, I don’t want anything from you,” Asia said, looking off at something that wasn’t him. “I had just been holding that in for nine years and wanted to let it out. You can leave now. Thanks for the closure.”

Chris put the ice pack back on his face. “So you’ve been checking in on me since I left,” he asked, “just in case I came back to town?”

She stood up and smacked the table. “I didn’t check up on you, you ass!” she yelled. “Who do you think they got to translate that box of your grandfather’s? I read that and knew you’d be coming. God, you take off a little baby fat and men think you leave your brain in your gym locker! I’m not the one that threw my career and my education away to go play cowboy.”

Chris reached for her hand, but she pulled it away.

“Asia, I’m sorry,” he said. “Yeah, you’re sorry,” she quipped, “and you made him sorry,” she added, pointing a thumb at Jose, “ but I won’t be sorry for you again. I’m…”

She stopped short when she noticed that he had noticed her new curves. He hadn’t noticed her noticing him, though. She coughed, but she didn’t need to. This was a fake cough that said danger was coming, that he was in mortal peril, that he had better at least blink. It would be the last warning she would give him… ever… but he failed to pay heed.

Years of exercise and more years of leafing through heavy, heavy tomes had made her fingers strong, and she used all that strength to clamp down on Chris’s ear.

“My eyes are up here,” she said, finally getting his attention.

He made yet another mistake by thinking this was the time to joke. “Yeah, but baby got back!” She went South Central on him.

“Yes, baby got back, but guess what, baby also got new music. Did you think they’d stop making new music when you left town? Or did you listen to so much country music that you forgot that it’s not all the same song played over and over by new people.”

He started to defend himself — himself or country music, he couldn’t decide — but he couldn’t stop staring at those angry eyes that told him something bad could happen. Jose was watching Asia’s fist, which was saying something bad was already happening.

“So if all you wanted was the punching, we have to go,” Jose said, starting to push Chris toward the door. “Take care, Asia; it’s been educational.”

And with one final push, he got Chris out into the street, where any of the dozens of people walking by could be a pickpocket or mugger or drug dealer or meth addict, and they both felt safer.

“So when we see my dad,” Chris asked, “is anyone going to punch me in the face?”

Jose started walking downtown. “You’ll be lucky if that’s all they do,” he said.

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-11-22T00:00:00.001-06:00

Episode IV: Fancy Beer

Christopher Billows had long lost his taste for fancy beer, or maybe it had lost its taste for him. His hosts, whoever they were, brought him a bottle of… well, of whatever it was. It tasted fine, he guessed, but the fancy bottle and the fancy label with the name written in a language that made no sense to him just made him wish harder for a Budweiser or a Coors Light or even a Dos Equis. There were a couple places around Albuquerque that brewed their own drafts, and he often enjoyed a local red rye with the boys, but this time he had not been offered the choice, which told him this beer was meant more as message than refreshment. Not being one to waste beer, he drank it anyway.

Jose hadn’t left his appreciation of the good stuff on Wall Street when he followed Chris to the middle of nowhere, and he was savoring every drop of the brew.

“I’m picking up notes of hickory,” he said with an air of superiority, “and a fruity note.”

Chris yawned and brushed him off with a wave, saying, “You know I don’t go in for that hoity toity crap.”

Jose laughed the self-righteous laugh of a man about to land a low blow. “And did they teach you ‘hoity toity’ at Harvard or Princeton?”

Chris responded by pushing his hat down so the brim hid his face and the way his lips were suddenly stuck fiercely to the bottle, but the Mexican was undeterred.

“When you left Wall Street, I understood enough to go with you, but there was no reason to leave every bit of that life behind,” Jose said. “When we get back to Albuquerque, I’ll take you to a fantastic restaurant, in what used to be a firehouse, where they make the best foie gras and a very tasty veal dish.”

Chris met Jose’s eyes for just a second and retreated back behind his hat. “Heard that restaurant’s gone,” he said. “Nothing left but a bar. Even the city is rejecting that stuff.”

Jose swigged his beer. “Dammit, Chris, there’s only so many Frito pies a man can eat.”

Chris, his back still stiff from what seemed like a day’s long helicopter ride, twisted his head toward the nearest of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding what had to be a conference room, what with its ridiculously long table lined with chairs. He saw only blue.

“Speaking of Albuquerque, have you figured out where the hell we are yet?”

“You’re in the Caiman Islands!” said the clean-cut, suited man who burst through the door at that moment, as if he were waiting with ear to wood for the perfect moment for a dramatic entrance. “Actually, you’re on my own private island off the Caiman Islands!”

Jose spun in his seat, looking for any clue in the waters beyond the window.

“Why here?” asked the Mexican. “Why not the Florida Keys or Las Vegas or a volcano somewhere?”

“Funny thing about shell corporations,” the stranger said, “it’s easier to get away with them if you actually do have your headquarters here.”

Chris only tipped his bottle all the way back and reached blindly for Jose’s.

“And how do you like your beer,” the stranger asked. “It’s a Japanese recipe using water melted from Himalayan snow, rice grown within the Emperor’s private garden, and barley grown by Germany’s first brewmaster. It is fermented in barrels made of golden slats held together with pure silver that are used only once. It used to be the most prestigious and expensive brew in the world, the stuff of legend and legacy, but I couldn’t bear for anyone besides me to own even one bottle, so I bought the brewery.”

Jose continued to search the horizon. Chris let out a burp from under his hat.

“That mean you do or do not have a Corona?” he asked.

The stranger led them from the conference room with its expansive panoramic view, down a hallway trimmed with Athenian-style molding and lined with modern art, into an oversized office, walled in glass, furnished in aniline leather and accented with stainless steel that gleamed in the sunlight. He unbuttoned his Brioni jacket and propped his Chris Lobb shoes on the desk.

Chris let out a whistle. “I’m impressed with you, sir,” he said. “Most guys in your position wouldn’t have had the humility for the subtle approach.”

The stranger laughed.

“You know,” Chris said, “most men who laugh when you insult them want something from you.”

The cowboy sat down in one of the expensive leather chairs and kicked his still-dusty boots up on the desk with the strangers. The man in the suit stopped laughing and returned his feet to the floor. Chris kept his boots where they were. Jose finally let out a snicker at the whole affair.

After a pause, the stranger coughed, folded his hands, and fixed his gaze on the cowboy.

“My name is Dell Cornell, and I had the pleasure of working with your grandfather until his death.”

“Disappearance,” both visitors corrected.

“Ok, disappearance, then,” Cornell said, his eyes searching the room for the words he intended to say. “I was working with your grandfather at the time of his, ah, disappearance, and I want to tell you that it’s a pity we were unable to finish that work together. You see, he was adamant that a groundbreaking discovery was nearly at hand, but, well, I assume you know the rest as well as I do.”

“That’s a terrific story, Mr. Cornell,” Chris said. “Why don’t you get to the part where we’re here in your office listening to it.”

The best-dressed man in the room cleared his throat and reached under his desk.

“Would you like another beer,” he said, setting one out for each of his guests.

Chris grabbed his bottle, took a swig, and then stuck a cigar in his mouth.

“Uhm, this is a non-smoking building,” Cornell said, throwing in a cough for effect.

Chris lit a match. “Not if you want my help it’s not,” the cowboy said.

Cornell sighed the sigh of someone being put upon, but the other two men in the room withheld their sympathy, so he continued anyway.

“We believe you grandfather may have left you some details of his work, something that might lead us to take up where his work, unfortunately, ended,” he said. “Did his attorney bring anything during his visit?”

Chris stood forcefully. “And exactly how long have you been following us?” he demanded. “I bet you could probably tell me better than I could.”

Cornell placed a photo of the puzzle box on the table. “The box was detailed in court documents, but any contents were not.”

Chris shrugged and pulled the actual box from his satchel. “That’s about all there was,” the cowboy said, opening the box with Jose’s help. “Inside were a photo and this pipe, and that’s all.”

Cornell’s face sank. “And the office?” he asked. “Did you find anything there?”

Chris sent a big cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Nothing but ashes and memories,” he said.

Cornell stood and smoothed his suit. “Gentlemen, should you find this trail, I hope you’ll let me help you, maybe with a few men and some equipment,” he said. “I still have quite a bit of money tied up in this enterprise.”

Jose adjusted his hat and grabbed his bottle of fancy beer. “I hope you don’t expect a lot of trust for a man with this much money, who knows when the attorney visited and where to find us in the desert, and who still doesn’t seem to know the first thing about the job with which he’s offering to help,” he said.

“I understand,” Cornell said, forcing out a smile, “but a man like you describe probably doesn’t hear ‘no’ often enough to accept it as an answer.”

Neither Chris nor Jose muttered a word until the helicopter was well out of sight and sound, drifting off like the memory of a second long, dull ride. The reason for the silence had as much to do with what they couldn’t hear over the machine’s noises as it did with what others might somehow be able to hear.

Cornell had returned them to find two men in suits had tracked down their horses and were now standing guard over them. They also found the hideaway’s door still closed and sealed.

The partners mounted their horses and went for their cigars, but unfortunately found only one left between both their supplies. Chris checked the saddlebags for a stray smoke, but found only his machete, presumably packed there by Cornell’s guards.

“Well,” he said, using the oversized blade to slice the cigar in twain, “at least they’re not thieves.”

Jose corrected, “At least not this time.”

Chris reached into his boot and grabbed the letters still hidden there.

“There’s got to be something here to explain what just happened,” he said.

While Chris spread the papers as best he could across the horse’s neck, careful not to let them slip, Jose pulled a fresh bottle of that fancy beer from his coat.

“Where’d you get that?” asked Chris, fumbling too much with the letters for his own comfort.

“I’m sneaky,” Jose said, and he pulled a second bottle to join the first. “Want one?”

“Stick it in the saddle bag for me,” Chris said, and the two pulled as close together as the horses would allow.

“There’s nothing here,” Chris said, staring at the scrawled writing, “nothing but a bunch of vague statements that don’t mean anything.”

Jose leaned in close. “What’s that number?” he asked.

Chris looked at it and saw 10161947, and he squinted at it and saw 10161947, and he groaned.

“It’s my old man’s birthday,” he said.

Jose whistled. “New York, here we come!”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-11-15T00:00:00.013-06:00

Episode III: Rule No. 1

Some maps just won’t make sense if you don’t know where you are to start with. Grandpa’s map was simple if you followed the dotted lines, but there were no lines painted on the dusty ground, and the cowboys had strayed well off the path, all for a hat.

“But it’s my good hat,” Jose argued. “The other one is still in Cheyenne, hanging from that bull’s horn, no doubt, and I have no intention of going after it in this lifetime.”

Chris stuck a still-soggy cigar in his mouth and tried to find a match that still had some fire in it.

“You should have learned that lesson years ago,” he said, “back when you kept running back to wrestle with Jenny Banks. I bet you get bucked off less with the bull.”

Jose fished a dry pack of matches out of a saddlebag.

“That may be true,” he said, “but I wouldn’t be lost in the middle of the desert if I were on my own.”

Chris looked nowhere in particular.

“We’re not lost,” he insisted. “We gotta be somewhere north of Alamo, just have to head south until we find Highway 60, but…” Jose filled in the blank, “… but then we don’t find your grandfather’s workshop.”

The wind that had brought the previous night’s storm also left with it. Nothing remained but a stale, dry air. The shadows had blended into the twilight. Chris walked up a nearby ridge for one last look around. A hill just beyond it held some trees that might keep off any rain that snuck up on them and enough fallen branches to start a fire.

It didn’t take long to have a blaze going, as eager as they were to pack it in for the night. Turned out luck was finally on their side, too. Down near the bottom of the hill, a tree root jutted out from the dirt and then shot back in a few feet away, offering a perfect place to tie up the horses. A couple of blankets spread out on the ground would be bed for the night, and the pair used their hats to turn off the stars. They were quiet almost long enough for the desert to start talking to them before…

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again, goin’ places I may nev… Damn, Chris, that hurt like hell!”

Chris pulled back the stick, which he conveniently found next to him, and tucked it under his blanket — just in case. The hill had provided again.

“The last time you started singing, we got here,” Chris said, but Jose had another theory.

“Wasn’t your flask full when we started out here?”

“I forgot you’ve been on the wagon now since noon.”

Since they had stopped for the night, it was easier to find humor in the taunting. Jose got up just long enough to grab a pair of apples from the saddlebags, and he tossed one to Chris. The big machete made the apple look like a cherry and sliced it just as easily.

“So Chris, why are we here?”

“Now don’t go getting us off on that subject again!”

“No, no, why are we doing this?” asked Jose. “Why did we pick up and run toward this desert hideaway based on nothing more than a picture? You used to have such purpose, and you followed reason first.”

Chris sat up to gather his thoughts. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Logic just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“Neither does your poker game,” Jose chimed in.

“Jose, in this world, madness eventually replaces reason,” Chris said, “so you might as well ride madness all the way into town.”

“Well,” Jose said, “I guess that makes sense.”

Chris laid down with his back to the Mexican. “And what about you?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

Jose chuckled. “I’ve been following you since before I can remember,” he said. “I’ll probably be following you until at least one of us reaches the grave.”

The moon was already up, even if the sun was still holding on, and the first of the coyote cries echoed over the desert.

Chris tried to sleep with one eye open, but it was a pointless exercise. Something about the tree or the hill or the moon, but the insects stayed away. The coyotes stayed away. The moths and the prairie dogs and the jackrabbits and the roadrunner stayed away. It was as peaceful a night as any he’d seen under the New Mexico stars.

In the moonlight, he watched as a cactus wren perched on the nearby ridge. It whistled, and two more joined, each sitting unmoving with one eye on the camp and the other on desert. Chris propped his head up with a rolled up blanket, settled his hat over his face, and drew his revolver and his machete, crossing them on his chest, just in case he needed to act quickly. He closed his eyes and drifted off.

Chris found himself walking along his grandfather’s map, trying to step only on the broken line, following it as precisely as possible. He met the arroyo, frothing and roaring like a rapids, and this time he crossed it with a leap and continued along the path. Over his shoulder, a coyote fell in a few steps behind him. It stepped in time to the cowboy’s feet, and they marched along for a time without sound. The horned and antlered animals appeared from behind a mesa, and a deer, an elk and a bighorn sheep fell in line. They marched further, sidestepping the yucca and the sagebrush and hopping the rocks. Music filled the air, a rousing march with a steady bass drum and a full brass section. The cacti formed ranks behind the animals, and even the stars aligned to show the way, matching the line on the ground. Chris looked up to see a ridge, and behind it a hill with a fire. There, next to the dwindling blaze, Chris saw himself and Jose asleep on the hill, and the line led straight toward them. A cactus wren landed on his shoulder and sung into his ear so loud he woke up.

Jose was already packing when Chris opened his eyes. “About time you woke up,” he said, holding a burning stick to a cigar held tightly between his teeth.

Chris held up his hands to see that his weapons were still in them. As he put them away, he looked toward the west, where he had seen the cactus wrens before he went to sleep, but there was no longer one or two or three birds. There were hundreds, wrapping along the length of the ridge. He turned north and south to see more wrens and then turned to the east, where the ridge connected to form a circle, and still he saw more wrens.

“It’s the damndest thing,” Jose said. “I threw rocks at them, but they scattered and came right back.”

Chris threw a rock of his own, but he learned nothing that Jose hadn’t just told him. The pair each grabbed a saddlebag and headed down to where the horses were still tied to the root.

“I wonder if our food spoiled a little,” Chris said. “It’s been a long time since I had a dream like that, and I usually did something to bring it on.”

Jose had the map laid out. “So now that it’s light,” the Mexican asked, “do you have any better idea where in the hell we are?”

Chris looked around, and just off to his right, on the north side of the mound, he spotted a totem. “What do you make of that?” he asked.

They walked over toward it and found a traditional Indian totem, but a small one. It had faces top and bottom, with a pair of hands in the middle and a crack dividing them. Chris grabbed a stick off the ground and, out of curiosity, pried around in the hole. A bright light emerged.

“What the hell was that?” he yelled.

He tossed the stick aside and, with Jose looking over his shoulder, shoved his hand inside. At the end of the hole, Chris felt three distinct ridges, about equal distance apart, splitting his fingers perfectly.

“Jose, read that writing on the map again,” he ordered.

“It just says ‘Rule No. 1,’” Jose said.

Chris whispered, “The greatest respect you can pay a man is to look him in the eye when you’re shaking his hand.”

He held his hand tightly against the side of the hole and went eye to eye with the face atop the totem. Another light flashed and a crack opened in the side of the hill, revealing a very normal looking door in a very unusual place for it. Chris grabbed the Aztec puzzle box out of his saddlebag, turned the doorknob, and plunged into the earth.

Inside, it was the 1970s in its full glory. The wall to Chris’s left was lined floor to ceiling with books, leading to a fireplace at the rear wall, although Chris couldn’t remember seeing anything that could double as a chimney. Where they met sat a black leather lounge chair, paired with an ottoman at its feet. A metal ashtray on a two-foot stand sat at arm’s reach. To his right, along the east wall, more books bordered a large desk, adorned with only a few decorations and knickknacks along with assorted baubles.

Still needing two people to push the buttons, Jose helped Chris open his grandfather’s box, and Chris lifted the photograph, comparing it to the sight before him, trying hard to recapture a memory that was long forgotten. Jose leaned against the desk and lit a cigar, and Chris joined him, sitting in the chair.

“It might be ten years late, but we might as well join Grandpa in a smoke,” Chris said, tapping the ashtray. “I’m sure it’s not the first time someone lit up in here.”

Chris stared over the picture at the desk and the shelves. He still felt there was something important here, but his mind wasn’t cooperating.

“I know it’s got to be crazy, but I swear this picture and this pipe are both puzzles, same as the box they came in,” Chris said.

His eyes jumped from the desk to the photo, while he rubbed his fingers along the pipe, still in the box, tracing the edges of the silver band and the bumps along the button and the smooth rim around the bowl. The images fuzed into a high-contrast blur, and the din around him dropped from his consciousness. His cigar had long gone out and become a chew toy, a victim of Chris’s self-hypnosis, when Jose leaned noiselessly over Chris’s shoulder.

“Looks like he added a shelf,” said Jose, waking Chris from his stupor.

There was, in fact, one shelf above the desk that had, at some point since Chris’s infancy, been altered, with a new plank added between the existing ones. The altered furnishings blended in by holding smaller books and decorations perfectly. Chris wanted to kick himself for missing this obvious clue, but he went to work quickly clearing everything in his way. The shelf emptied quickly, but even then, it was still a shelf. Chris sighed his disappointment.

“I was sure I would find something,” he said, smacking the shelf. In frustration, he smacked it again, and then again. With a great yell of anger and frustration welling up from beyond his understanding, he yanked the shelf, and it slid easily toward him, so easily that he was unable to keep from hurling it into the bookshelves on the other wall.

“What’s that?” asked Jose, and Chris paused his tantrum. He looked around and saw nothing.

“No, there on your boot,” Jose pointed.

Chris looked down to see a standard envelope. Bending to pick it up, he noticed immediately how thick it was. Inside, he found many letters addressed to his grandfather from a man named Randal Lewis. He thumbed quickly through the pages, seeing references to Aztecs and Apache and stones, but he stopped when strong winds blew through the open door and a sound like thunder echoed off the walls.

Jose yelled as the horses bolted past the door, and he ran after them. Chris folded the letters and pushed them into his boot. Putting his hand on his hat and chomping down on his cigar, Chris stepped out into the wind. Just over the ridge, he saw a helicopter hovering, looking for a place to land. A man in a black suit and tie walked down the ridge toward him. The spectacle left Chris dazed enough that the man was able to take his machete without argument.

“Mr. Billows,” he said, “you need to come with us now.”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-11-08T00:00:00.002-06:00

Episode II: Happy Trails

The drive up I-25 to Albuquerque was always a beautiful spectacle of mountains and valleys and mesas and desert, but tedium set in by the time the sign outside Los Lunas warned against picking up hitchhikers that might be escapees from the prison just down the hill. Chris let go of the wheel long enough to backhand his passenger in the chest. “Say, Jose, I still haven’t figured out who takes care of things back home when you’re on the road with me,” he said. The Mexican yawned and rubbed his eyes. “All my family — you know, the hundreds that are up here illegally — come out of hiding to do all the chores for 30 cents a day,” he said. “I haven’t ever lifted a finger for you.” Chris pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, crushing it between his teeth. “One of these days I’ll figure out if you’re joking or serious,” he said, trying to spark his lighter with the windows down and a forceful New Mexico wind passing through the truck’s cabin. Jose reached over and grabbed a cigar for himself, and then, without a steering wheel interfering, lit both of the cheap stogies. “You know how many illegals you can fit into a phone booth?” he asked, settling back into his chair. “About three million, so long as there’s a border to cross on the way.” Chris laughed, more at the joker than the joke. “Now I know you didn’t make that up, so where’d you hear it from?” The Mexican flashed a devious smile. “I heard it from that guy who convinced you no one could ever be successful calling their company Google.” Chris spit his cigar onto the floorboards. Amid clusters of cuss words, the stomping of feet and a few swerves toward the desert, he managed to blurt out, “Dammit Jose, why do I let you set me up for that crap?”

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Chris’s drives to see his grandmother always started the same way, with him standing on the porch getting his cheeks pinched while fielding questions about why he hadn’t settled down and how long it had been since he called his father. “It’s good to see you too; no, I still haven’t found the right girl; I haven’t even gotten in the door yet.” The two men insisted they weren’t hungry, so within 15 minutes, the consummate hostess had filled a pair of plates with ham steaks, mashed potatoes, baked beans and macaroni and cheese, and she was already working on cleaning the pots.

With plates cleaned and stomachs bursting, Chris and Jose pried the matriarch away from her sink. “Granny,” Chris said, “Artie stopped by last night with a package from Grandpa.” His words fell on a distracted woman, already looking back at her dirty dishes. “You don’t say; what could he still have after all this time?” Ten years earlier, this grandmother had been a gracefully aging woman named Estelle, who still turned the head of the occasional cougar hunter, but that was life before her Walter disappeared. Chris tried not to notice her thinning hair, her sunken cheeks or the six inches, at least, that she had already shrunk. “There was a pipe…” “That stinky old thing,” she interrupted. “… and a picture.”

Despite an inner strength forged through years of experience and hard work in family and business, grandmothers have an innate weakness for photographs, especially those of their grandchildren. “You see those booties? I knitted those for you,” Estelle cooed. “You never could seem to keep them on, though. I may have picked them up more than I picked you up.” “Granny, I need to ask you…” “Your Grandpa used to explain every single thing he was working on to you, and he always used the same words for you as he would for anyone else. He said you’d be better for it someday, for him refusing to tone it down for you.” “We really need to…” “You know, there’s one thing I never understood, though. He always said you were the answer. What do you suppose he meant by that?” Chris waited in silence in case she started up again. Neither of them really expected an answer to the question, though, so it just hung there in the air, refusing to go unnoticed. Finally, Chris grabbed the photo. “Granny, where is this room? I don’t remember anything like it here.” Estelle took the photo and this time perched her bifocals on her nose. “Why that, that’s your Grandpa’s office. You weren’t out there very often, though. Too much to break, and the ride was too hard for a child to make very often.” Chris looked at the photo again. “The ride?”

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Estelle’s brittle fingers spread a map over the hood of Chris’s Jeep, which was still warm from the drive into the desert. The paper was wrinkled from years of use and improper re-folding. Chris laughed at the broken line that led, treasure map style, from the dot marking where they were standing to a bold “X”. “It’s your Grandpa’s idea of a joke,” Estelle said. “Each time he left, he said he was hunting knowledge… even the last time.” Estelle tried to catch her tears, but a few managed to avoid her fingers, falling on the map. Chris squeezed her frail shoulder. “Granny, it’s been ten years since he died. Don’t you…” “He’s missing, and I’d miss him the same either way. I don’t want you ever to feel this way, but I hope you love someone enough that you could.” She wiped her eyes, coughed a few times, and put on the same brave face she’d perfected over the last decade. Chris tipped his hat and tried to fold the map. “Hey, is this Grandpa’s writing? ‘Rule No. 1.’ What does that mean?” Estelle looked it over and smiled. “Oh, you remember your Grandpa’s silly rules, don’t you? Let’s see, No. 1, which one was that? Ah, yes.” She straightened up as much as her curved frame could handle and put on the deepest voice she could muster. “‘The greatest respect you can give a man is to look him in the eye when you shake his hand.’” The memory was worth the laugh, and Chris hugged her as tightly as he dared. The rancher picked that moment to show up with the horses, two beautiful animals with plenty of shine in their hair. Chris had strapped a revolver to his hip and was pulling a machete sheath around his shoulder. He tested the blade in his hand, spinning it and swiping it to remember its tendencies before sliding it into its leather home. “Why’d Grandpa build this thing so far away from everything? He’d spend more time traveling than working, and the trip couldn’t have been good for his artifacts.” “Well,” Estelle said, “he always said you can’t understand the past if you’re surrounded by the present. That’s why he built in the middle of nowhere. He said even the most sophisticated equipment couldn’t find his hovel without that map.” “Yeah, but I live like that,” Chris said, “and I still have a road to my house.”

“Chrissy, you built a ranch between the Trinity site and the Very Large Array, the atom to the east and the stars to the west, and you expect us to believe you’re not still a city slicker in a pair of boots? You may still find something out here worth keeping, but you definitely showed up running away.” The woman had given her wisdom and was satisfied to let it go at that. Chris mounted his horse; Jose was already on his. The cowboy popped a cigar into his mouth and went to light it. “Chrissy, you better quit that nasty habit,” Estelle said. “Not ‘til I die or find something better,” said Chris, hoisting his cigar into the air as if it was a flag or the exclamation point on an argument he was sure he just won. “Take care of my Jeep, Granny,” Chris yelled out. “I’ll be back for it soon.” The horses and the Jeep waved goodbye with the dust they kicked up. The sun was already beating down, but the rains from the night before made the desert uncharacteristically muggy. The breeze helped, but even a little moisture in the air was oppressive in the blistering heat. The sounds of the wind, the buzz of the odd insect, the rustling of what few leaves where nearby, it all amplified a deepening silence, even more so than the home Chris had built to escape all the noise. He set his breathing to be in time with the beating of hooves on the hard desert floor. He closed his eyes and prayed that he would never hear another sound again. Jose was not praying the same prayer. “On the road again. Just can’t wait to get…” Chris took a swipe at him that had no chance of connecting, so he looked for something to throw. Jose looked for another song. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer. You take one down… Ok, ok, Chris, just put the machete away.” Chris finally allowed a laugh, sheathed his blade, and decided to pick the song himself this time. “Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in.” Jose joined in with some nearly tuned harmonies. “Let me ride through the wild open country that I love. Don't fence me in.” They drew the horses as close together as they could muster and threw their arms around each other like two drunken cowboys heading home from the saloon. “Let me be by myself in the evening breeze, listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees, send me off forever, but I ask you please, don't fence me in.” Chris looked at Jose, and Jose looked back at Chris, and they silently agreed there was no point in pretending, so each pulled a flask out of their saddle bags and they set about getting a little liquored up, not intending to drink much but just enough to make sure they had a good ride. Jose started the next song. “Happy trails to you until we meet again.” Chris took another swig and took up the second line. “Happy trails to you. Keep smilin’ until then.”

The Adventures of Latakia Billows

2010-11-01T01:31:00.004-05:00

Episode I: A Matter of Luck

Maybe it was just the fading light, but the pile of cash in the middle of the table looked at least as big as the pile of empty beer bottles dumped off toward the corner of the porch, right next to where the ash tray had been dumped three times already.

The cards were starting to feel heavy, but it could have been from bad luck or alcohol. Five of them spread apart to reveal a ten, a four, a queen, a three and a seven, all four suits, garbage that only a fool would play.

Christopher Billows watched as the man to his right, an old poker-playing Texan, tossed a few more twenties onto the pile. Around the table, the cards flew in: fold, fold, fold, fold. Chris looked at the losing proposition in his hand and then back to the Texan. The horses running toward the barn told Chris the rain was coming and this was probably the last hand, and even the beer couldn’t make him forget the spectacular losing streak he was on. If he played the odds, the odds would tell him to fold the hand, since there was no way he was ever going to pull the cards he needed. But the odds were also telling him that he had to win eventually, and it might as well be now. Chris stared straight into the Texan’s eyes and confidently announced he’d call.

Chris’s cigar gave way to crushing teeth and spilled some of its juices down his chin. It was cheap stick, named god-knows-what and bought god-knows-where and stored in an unappreciated refrigerator so he wouldn’t have to fuss over a humidor. If it had cost him a buck, it would have been too expensive. He firmly believed a man couldn’t smoke expensive cigars without inviting expensive problems. The flavor was harsh and bitter until his trip-nines got beat nearly a dozen hands ago, when he flicked the ash and the cherry all over the winner.

The host was too agitated to laugh, but four out of five of his guests thought it was funny. The other was looking at the embers burning into his shirt and wondering if his wife would still believe he had been at a board meeting all night.

The Texan’s cigar, meanwhile, was still burning, steadily and evenly. It was a Cuban Cohiba, and to Chris, it smelled of exorbitance and one-upmanship. It may not have been the cigars as much as the way the Texan told everyone they were welcome to a “real” cigar and then hid the box under his chair before anyone could take him up on it. He was a rich fool, and a fool and his money are soon parted. By the end of that hand, Chris planned to reveal the fool for who he was.

The dealer, a Mexican farmhand Chris brought in years before, absent-mindedly picked up the deck. His keen eyes had spotted the rain off on the horizon, but the Texan brought everyone’s focus back to the game with two words.

“I’m good.”

Chris pulled the ten and queen from his hand and tossed them toward the dealer. Thunder rolled across them from the desert as Chris slapped his hand down on the replacement cards. He thought, for a second, about picking them up, but in a fit of bravery, he decided against it. With his raised eyebrow, he dared the Texan to bet.

Shaking his head in amusement, the man tossed a fresh $100 bill onto the table. Chris noticed the Texan only had two hundreds left and raised enough to make him wager his last dollar.

Smiling, the Texan called and turned over a straight running from ace to five, a hand know as the Wheel. Chris laughed as he turned his three, four and seven onto the table and stood up.

Still without having seen his last two cards, Chris turned the first to reveal a five. Closing his eyes, he took a few seconds to will that last card to be the six he needed to win. The Texan blew a long, shrill whistle through his teeth.

“Ain’t no way your luck’s good enough for one more card,” he said. “That money’s good as mine.” The gamblers-turned-spectators around the table mumbled their agreement, tipping their bottles well back into the air.

Chris held his hand in the air until the porch went quiet, save for the rustling of the trees and the stillness of a storm in waiting. He let the hush build until it screamed, and then his upheld hand swooped down and swiped his last hidden card, flipping it over and rising again toward heaven in a victorious pose.

The snickering began immediately. Chris looked down to see the queen of clubs.

“Dammit, Jose, why do you deal me such crap?”

Jose tossed the deck onto the pile of cash the Texan was scooping up. When the host goes broke, the game is over. Not satisfied to assume his guest knew that maxim, Chris looked to shoo everyone away by grabbing and throwing everything in arms reach.

His hat came off and flew toward the front door. The cigar that he never bothered to relight bounced off Jose’s left ear. Then Chris grabbed the nearest bottles, fit three into his throwing hand, and hurled them into the yard. Pabst Blue Ribbon was not only one of his favorite beers for a special occasion, but also a damn fine projectile. The bottles and the lightning hit the Pinyon Pine together, and the tree exploded in fire.

The swaying and staggering cowboys watched the storm put out its own fire and followed the smoked as it joined the clouds above that had snuck up on them from the west. No one noticed the clouds rising in the east and approaching quickly.

A Lincoln Town Car motored up the long dirt road linking what was generously called a highway to the Billows ranch. The road had no lines, no lights, and no lack of snares for unfamiliar drivers.

Anyone heading that way was lost, crazy or determined. A few hands went to their hips. Chris made sure his shotgun was still leaning against the porch railing.

The car pulled up next to the row of pickups and Jeeps parked next to the house, and the driver stepped out. With the headlights still on, the gamblers on the porch could only see the shadow of a man and the umbrella he opened, and then the silhouette shrank a foot as the figure let his foot drop into a rabbit hole. All the trigger fingers got a little less itchy.

A dozen eyes watched as the mystery visitor limped his way toward the front door. When he hit the steps, Chris recognized the old-fashioned glasses and overly wide tie.

“Artie, what the hell you doing here,” he said. “Fellas, meet the family lawyer. Artie, you’re doing pretty good for being so far from the ocean.”

Arthur Abrams shook his umbrella as he folded it up.

“Yes sir,” he muttered, inspecting the dirt that had painted his left leg. “I did manage to get quite lost venturing into the desert.”

A few of the gamblers let loose a snicker.

“No, Artie, I was calling you a shark,” Chris laughed at him.

The lawyer shook off the leftover rain and the insult. “Mr. Billows, I have some business I must conduct. Can we speak in private?”

Chris pushed his hat back with a quizzical look. “All right boys, you heard him. Game’s over."

A big hand slapped Chris on the shoulder. “The game was already over,” the Texan chuckled. “You already gave me all your money.”

As the guests made their way down the steps, Chris grabbed Jose by the arm.

“Whoever invited that guy is off the Christmas list,” he said, nodding toward the Texan.

Jose said, “Sure thing, boss,” but muttered, “Lo mereces,” a Spanish phrase roughly translated, “Serves you right.” The Mexican started picking up the bottles as Chris and Artie headed inside.

The house was everything you might expect from a recovering city boy taking refuge in the desert. The décor was early native and modern taxidermy with the occasional accent by Smith & Wesson. No one would have suspected the cowboy living in the middle of New Mexico was a former stock broker who abandoned his mile-a-minute lifestyle and six-figure salary for a simpler way of life, but they wouldn’t have mistook him for a real cowboy either.

Despite his attempts to bury the remnants of Wall Street, he still hadn’t shed his impatience, his natural leaning toward multitasking, or his desire to win at anything where there’s a score to be kept.

He also hadn’t yet managed to shake the attorney, but Arthur had been his father’s attorney and his grandfather’s before that. It was hard to find a lawyer with that kind of loyalty along with a willingness to drive into the dark, off the paved road, in the middle of a storm.

Chris led Arthur to a small office off the main hallway. Here, on a small, handmade table, Chris kept the few indulgences from his New York life: a laptop he rarely opened and a satellite phone he never carried. The nearest town, Socorro, had cellular reception and broadband Internet, so Chris was careful to move just far enough away to avoid those technological temptations.

“So, not that I’m unhappy to see you or anything, but why are you here?” Chris asked. “There problems with my money?”

The aged attorney sat down across the table from his client and opened his briefcase. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “I’m here to execute your grandfather’s will.”

Chris stared for a second. “But my grandfather’s been dead for ten years,” he blurted out in disbelief.

Arthur looked at him over those oversized, square glasses. “We prefer missing,” he said, “since his body was never found, probably still in a cave or some such, but we won’t say ‘deceased’ until he’s found.”

Chris shook his head, “Fine, whatever, but it’s still been at least ten years.”

Arthur nodded. “Ten year’s exactly,” the lawyer said, “as specified in his will. He specified we save one item for just this moment.”

Chris shifted forward in his chair. “Well, what is it?”

With arthritic hands, Arthur pulled an intricate, ornate wooden box from his briefcase. It was not quite as big as a shoebox and covered in symbols that looked vaguely familiar to the cowboy, whose thoughts immediately returned to his grandfather’s office and the chalkboard he used to translate artifacts he had dug up.

“We took the liberty of translating the symbols,” Arthur said. “These are Nahuatl pictographs, the language of the Aztecs. The top of the box is something similar to ‘Search for meaning inside,’ and the bottom means, ‘You are the answer.’”

Chris noticed grooves along the sides of the box and tried to slide off the lid, but it wouldn’t move. He tried to lift it off with no success. He tried twisting and yanking, but could not open it.

“I tried it as well,” Artie said, “but I found the same results. There is a ‘button’ of sorts on each side, but they appear to do nothing.”

Chris prodded the sides until his finger sank into the wood about a quarter inch, then he pressed the other three, but the lid still wouldn’t open.

“You know, Grandpa wouldn’t have wanted this opened before I had it,” Chris said. “It would be just like him to use a box that two people had to open. Here, you push two and I’ll push two.”

As the men sunk their fingers into the box, they nudged at the lid with their thumbs. After a slow first inch, it easily slid off.

With reverence, Chris sat the lid aside and reached into the box, pulling out an old, black and white photograph. There he was as an infant, diapered and tinted sepia, sleeping in his grandfather’s arms in his grandfather’s office.

As he stared at the moment of frozen history, Chris’ elbow bumped into the box, knocking it only a few inches, but it was enough to produce a rattle. He reached back into it and emerged holding a wooden pipe, well used but still looking relatively new. It bore a forked-tail “P” and was stamped “Irish Free State.” After all the years, it still smelled vaguely of ash and smoke.

Arthur closed his briefcase and stood to leave. “Artie, why did he want me to have this now?” Chris asked. “What does it mean?” Arthur took up his umbrella. “I think,” he said, “it means you’ll have to go home and figure that out.”

All content and characters are the property of the author and may not be republished or recreated without prior written consent.

Epilogue

2010-09-30T23:31:00.001-05:00

The following story will be your first exposure to a new brand of adventurer, but this is chronologically at the end. So if you're reading the end, why do you want to go back and start from the beginning? First, I'm sure I'm not surprising anyone by telling you the hero rides off into the sunset. If you want to know what he rides, you'll read. Second, if you don't read, you'll miss what makes this adventurer different than any other. Mostly, he's a pipe smoker. Those of you who understand why that makes a difference don't need an explanation, and those who don't can easily find out by reading. One last thing, the hero is not yet named. His name will be decided in a contest at PipeChat, so visit that site for details. Ok, on with the epilogue. Happy reading.

The old man in the cowboy hat rubbed the purposely scarred walls with his randomly scarred hands. There was a message on the crags, but not necessarily a language. The light behind him flooded the cave, and he removed his hat to cut down on the shadows he cast. The glyphs were a map, but not one telling a destination. This was telling a journey. The old cowboy removed a leather tool wrap from his supplies and spread it on the ground. Picks, brushes, and a mallet were readily at his disposal, but these weren’t the tools he needed. Another wrap opened to reveal four tobacco pipes.
On the left, there was a corncob, one of a long line, replaced often out of necessity. The perils of treasure hunting often resulted in tragedy for his pipes, and he was grateful for the cobs’ willingness to make that sacrifice. He smoked this often when there was any chance he might have to move quickly. He lost three seeking the buried treasures of Captain Kidd and fourteen in negotiations with the IRS over their value. Often, it was the only pipe he took with him.
On the right was his celebration pipe, a Tsuge billiard with bamboo stem and decorated with the image of a dragon. It was a gift from the Japanese Emperor upon the return of his nation’s long lost treasure. To date, it was his largest find, and the pipe, while not the most expensive gift, was his favorite reward for services rendered. So rare it was that it never made the journey unless success was close at hand.
The second from the left was a simple Kaywoodie, a backup should any of the others fall to fate. When called to duty, it performed humbly but adequately, a journeyman pipe for the journeyman. It was the only bent pipe of the four and would have been the easy favorite for his thinking pipe had his thinking pipe not been stained in sentimentality.
That last pipe, the one he used to facilitate his thought processes and the one for which he now reached, was a Peterson billiard from the Free Irish State era, a classic for its form, design and simplicity. The pipe’s celebration of Irish independence was a symbol of the bravery and fortitude of conscience he hoped to emulate. Beyond that, it evoked memories of his first adventure, one that set him on a lifelong journey of exploration and discovery, especially self-discovery. Even at this late stage in his life, he was unable to determine whether it was the adventure or the pipe that created the man he now was, if there was even a choice to be made. Regardless, he could not imagine one without the other.
His hand hovered over three pouches attached to his belt, rubbing up against his holster. In one, he had Virginia tobacco given him by the Governor of Missouri mixed with Oriental tobacco he received from a grateful gypsy. In another, pure Kentucky burley with true St. James perique blessed by a Voodoo priestess. He reached into a third, pinching enough straight Syrian latakia, a treasure in its own right, and filled his Pete.
After many adventures and many treasures, the submarine was fitted with equipment to filter the air around it and resupply oxygen, a necessity when smoking while exploring underwater caves, and the one his eyes were lingering over as he lit his bowl was the most impressive thus far.
Between technological advancements and pure luck, the adventures lately had been requiring more of his mind and less of his body. He doubted he could still leap from tree to tree in the Congo or battle small armies on the mountain Ojos del Salado in Argentina or climb down the Rupal Flank cliff in the Himalayas. But thanks to seasoned reason, he no longer had to rely on the speed, strength and quick wits needed to survive the booby traps of his youth. Age and experience had taught him it was preferable to avoid the traps and that there was always another way in and out. Of course, his quests now took a little more time, as the correct path is rarely the quickest, but he was far more certain now he would face death from natural causes.
With his pipe burning nicely, he added a final tamp with a simple spare bolt from the sub and sat down on a stool he brought for just such occasions, as his aging joints could no longer take the strain of standing for extended periods.
Through the smoke, he viewed images, crudely drawn but potently meaningful, showing a civilization forced from it’s birthplace, traveling as nomads and absorbing the knowledge, wisdom and rituals of those cultures it met before disappearing without trace. After great accumulation of technology, this nation found itself the envy of its neighbors, a jealousy that led to many battles, which the wiser and better-armed civilization easily won, although they were lovers of peace and mourned bitterly over the fallen from both sides. Their desire for peace forced them to the sea, where they built a floating city, able to ride the waves and sink below the waters, so that their exploration need not end. The story, it seemed, did end, at least it did on this wall. He suspected the reasons behind the downfall of this nation adrift might be found inside, but first he had to open the door.
Because these were a people who loved learning and peace above all, the key, found in a series of catacombs beneath the ancient Great Pyramid of Alexandria, featured the Bowl of Hygeia. Now recognized as the symbol of pharmacy, the snake wrapped around the bowl once embodied both wisdom and healing. The cowboy recognized the significance of the Greek symbol inside an Egyptian labyrinth, if not immediately the purpose. He clenched his Peterson as he bent down gingerly to retrieve the artifact. The tobacco accented the moment, as he slid the key into place. It fit snuggly, but the adventurer hesitated before turning it. He stepped back to the pipe wrap and, before returning it to the submarine, swapped his Peterson for the Tsuge. The key waited for him, and his hand shook as he touched it again. “Welcome to Atlantis,” he said, as he turned the key and opened the door.

Chopping Down the "Peace" Tree

2010-07-15T21:02:00.002-05:00

An idea, brought to you by Solani Silver Flake in a Stanwell Bamboo Billiard.

Radical is the idea that mankind can obtain the understanding of cultural perspective intrinsic to itself for the purpose of living in unison. If these ideas are not cultivated into beliefs throughout the intellectual lifespan collectively, then they are just ideas bred by the design of an unabrasive society. I have not personally experienced any manifestation of the idea based on the hopes of the new age hippie. The ones who brandish peace signs in the form of two fingers thrown casually into the air. Peace is not a casual fleeting concept. Futility in peace is the same as futility in war. When pacifists put to action their specific breed of protest for the sake of peace, they in their actions are only waging war. Resistance and protest are not peaceful exploits. We take what we need, and the forceful nature by which we do so eliminates the hope that the understanding of peace can be recognized. If the men and women who are waging it seek to cultivate the rewards of it, the gains will be minimal and the cost high.

There is only one kind of peace that is attainable in this world, and that is the peace within one's self. This is the peace on which to expend energy and faith. There are few things that I will resign to about mankind as a whole, this is one of those things. We have to let societies do what societies do and forge our own armor to deflect the blades and arrows that stray. Never will man lay down their arms in the name of peace, not when assets, resources, and lives are at risk; not even when morality is at risk. In a peaceful world where man is left to his devices death, violence, and crime no matter how petty, can be the only derivative. Though this might seem a dark topic, it's brought me to some degree of enlightenment. I've been able to deliberately identify what turbulence is keeping me from my peace, and have since calmed the waves and slowed the churn. For those who have the bigger idea in mind, they first need to recognize that the more miraculous thing would be for all men to have their own peace. Collective peace is a prize that is made not to win, which is why it's so highly valued. It's hard not to hope when things are as they are.

Ignorance is a great platform for which ecumenical peace to stand on, because understanding is the means for an end. No revolution has been thwarted for the sake of peace, no transformation of government, nor people, nor policies have been conceived through clear and unrippled interpretation.

I find ways to consider how many times I've fought with myself and how the end result of each was the same; square one. I consider how I can dismiss the conflict and create harmony in the ripples that are created by living.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy.

Lessons learned under the hood, Part 1

2010-07-15T19:53:00.000-05:00

On recent hot, hot, hot summer days, I have been squeezing myself under the hood of a vehicle that has no apparent will to live. It has been sweaty, sticky, muggy, messy, but it was all made at least slightly more tolerable by my pipe.
Most mornings saw me with a corncob clenched in my jaw. Before heading to work on the metal monstrosity, I'd grab one of my two standard cobs, nothing bigger than a Diplomat (and nothing as hard to find as my reed stem versions), and a little tobacco with which to fill it.
Let me tell you that the cob is made for mechanical work. It can smoke hot and hard if needed, but can slow down and simmer when the sun beats down too hard and the bench on the porch starts calling. I'll admit to being a cob lover, but I always considered them a change-of-pace alternative to briar. While that is more credit than some briar "purists" will give corn, it still did not make them a first choice pipe.
Today, though, wanting a change of pace, I brought along a Kaywoodie that I have labeled a "beater" pipe, as I feel more comfortable putting it in harm's way than many of my other briars. I lit it up as I stared blankly into an engine that was defying the laws of common sense, and I puffed and puffed a little more and then reached for a pipe cleaner. And that's when it hit me that I didn't once use a pipe cleaner with my cobs. Now, because I wanted something different, I was tied to a pipe pouch and a handful of cotton-covered wire. To make things more complicated, I had to concentrate on preventing overheating, again reminding me that I hadn't thought twice about that with my cobs. And for one final complaint, with all the exhaust and motor oil odors and flavorings on the air, I couldn't taste the cool burning tobacco nearly as much as I could the revved up tobaccos in my cobs, but I'll get into that more later.
So lesson 1 was simple. When your attention is demanded elsewhere, pick a pipe that will let you divert your focus, and in this case, that made my cobs worth every penny I spent on the Kaywoodie.

Pipe Tool: A fingers-on review

2010-07-14T22:40:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have ready my ramblings about the new iPhone app Pipe Tool. Kevin at Pipes Magazine was kind enough to let me try it in exchange for a review. Well, that full review is up now. Hope you find it helpful.

There's an app for that?

2010-07-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just that we pipe smokers have become accustomed to relative obscurity. Granted, there are plenty of us on the Internet forums, or at least there seems to be. But it is unusual for us to be noticed by the so-called mainstream. That's why it's a little surprising when even we can say, as Apple has taught us to, "There's an app for that."

If you do a search for "pipe" in the Apple App Store, you have to wade through a lot of apps not relevant to our particular brand of pipe. There are apps involving plumbing pipes, pipe organs, and half pipes. There's really no reliable way to filter those out, so you keep your eyes peeled for something smoking related. There's a hookah app that lets you "inhale" and "exhale" via your phone's mic. There is iSmoke, which shows a cigarette, cigar or even a pipe and allows you to influence the direction the smoke blows by moving the phone. And there's the sequel, iSmoke II, that acts like the hookah app, only with the smoking instruments in the original.
But then I came across something new, something unique, something unapologetically centered around the smoking pipe. It's called, simply, Pipe Tool, and it looks to be as multipurpose as the metal implements we all carry in our pockets. All the following judgements are from the available screenshots and descriptions, but the app appears to allow easy access to tobacco reviews and descriptions, searches for tobacco based on ingredients (or maybe just flavorings), and a mobile tobacco cellar inventory.
My only concern about this app is the price. New apps by unknown programers (when there is a fee) generally run between $1 and $3. Often, $5 is pushing it, but this one has a $7 price tag. In the interest of helping this programmer to succeed — I think we can all appreciate the benefit this app brings to our hobby — I'd offer this suggestion: Either offer an introductory sale price to get interest up or provide a free trial app with limited functionality that offers an extensive demonstration. You'll always get more people trying it and buying it if they can see it work first.
But even with my reservations, I am truly grateful that people are still working to improve this hobby that brings us so much joy. You can't believe pipe smoking is going away when there's an app for that.

Official SMOKER LAW, 1st Ed.

2010-06-02T02:32:00.001-05:00

This is the first official edition of Smoker Law. It is a collection of rules to help guide smokers in their interactions with fellow smokers and those who do not partake in the leaf. It is our sincere hope that these rules will lead to a fuller enjoyment of all forms of tobacco. This list is not final, and further editions will be released as more laws are accumulated. Suggested additions may be submitted in the comments below.

1. If the purpose of your gathering is, in part or in whole, the use and consumption of tobacco, any tobacco product or accessory on the table may be used by anyone in attendance. A smoker who uses another's tobacco need not ask permission but must offer some commentary on the blend. Pipes are excluded from general use but may be fondled and ogled at any time, again with commentary.

2. Anyone given a standing offer to help himself or herself to a friend's tobacco need never ask for permission. However, it is still necessary to acknowledge the taking of said tobacco. A simple "I stole a cigar" shall suffice.

3. Matches and lighters should be shared without hesitation, but a smoker should only hold the lighter while lighting for a member of the opposite sex.

4. It is permissable to share pipes but not encouraged. Those sharing should be family or closer.

5. Corncob pipes are still pipes, unless they are from China.

6. When showing off a new pipe, it is permissible to comment on its uniqueness, its craftsmanship, or the ridiculously low price paid for it. It is not acceptable to show off a new pipe to brag about how much you spent or how impressive a pipe you can afford. The exception occurs if said pipe purchase cause your divorce. Then anything goes.

7. Although it is not acceptable to brag about how much you spent on a pipe, if you feel you must, you may only tell others the price you told your wife/significant other you paid for it.

8. It is only acceptable to encourage Pipe Acquisition Disorder (PAD) and Tobacco Acquisition Disorder (TAD). Such compulsive purchases may never be discouraged. The exception comes if the purchase includes a pipe or rare tobacco you plan to purchase yourself. Should you decide not to purchase the item(s) for yourself, you are obligated to make the purchase for the person you discouraged from buying.

9. Pipes, cigars and cigarettes may be used as pointers to enhance a discussion or monologue, or in physical expression of general pontification. They may never be used as swords. Pretending they are lightsabers may result in expulsion from the social group or place of business.

10. Smokers should make a good faith effort to use tobacco away from non-smokers, but as soon as someone pretends to cough, the smoker is allowed to pretend to ignore the cougher. This is doubly true if the tobacco is unlit, in which case, the smoker may blow pretend smoke in the cougher's face.

11. Any pipe or cigar smoker living within 50 miles of a locally owned tobacconist specializing in his or her tobacco of choice must patronize the business at least four times per year. Within 10 miles, it shall be monthly at a minimum.

12. Any smoker insisting others use any high-end product, be it pipe or cigar or tobacco or accessory, should supply it. Anyone not willing to buy his friends a Dunhill needs to keep quiet about them.

13. When it comes to tobacco-fueled social gatherings, if it is not a lie, it's not worth telling.

14. You can make fun of someone who is sending you free tobacco, but you shouldn't if you want that to continue.

15. Among the group, the person who smokes a pipe, wears glasses and has a beard is, by default, the smartest and most reliable person in the room. If more than one person fits this description, seniority will be determined by the highest percentage of naturally bald scalp.

16. While amongst fellow smokers, should an ember jumps out of your bowl and onto your favorite shirt, proper etiquette is to brush it away quickly, not jump up and do the hokey pokey dance while bumping in to the tin, the pipe racks and everyone else.

17. You can smoke a pipe, yet not be a pipe smoker. You must to elicit the accompanying and misleading sense of wisdom to be accepted as such.

18. A smoker should not be overly concerned when the smoking of a stout, nicotine-heavy blend causes the room to spin. For many smokers, that is the total extent of their exercise.

19. If inhale the aroma of another's tobacco so deeply that some becomes lodged in the nose, discretely remove the burley cube from your nostril hair before returning to the general conversation.

20. While discussing a pipe you wish to buy, other smokers involved in the conversation must wait 3 minutes before purchasing said item for themselves. Showing more then one picture of the pipe removes the waiting period and absolves any smoker who cannot help himself.

21. Proper etiquette dictates that, when at a friends house, you should either refrain from smoking or ask permission before lighting up. However, when in your own home, proper etiquette can stay outside with the non-smokers.

22. To smoke dottle, or not to smoke dottle, that is your option.

23. Size and technique don't matter. Attitude does.

24. Politics and religion may only be discussed so long as you can still share tobacco.

25. Smoking a cigar around pipe smokers and vice versa is encouraged, but anyone who lights a cigarette when higher quality tobaccos are readily available invites the mocking of his or her peers.

This list was created by the combined efforts of The Ozark Pipe Smokers of Rogers, Ark., and the members of Pipe Chat. It may be reproduced with proper attribution and cited as needed.

The camaraderie of the pipe

2010-05-17T03:04:00.001-05:00

It's been a few days since our SEM. For the uninitiated, that's a Special Emergency Meeting. Before you get excited, no, there wasn't an actual emergency. If there had been, it would have been an Emergency Meeting, like we had back when the tobacco tax scare hit. No, this was a Special Emergency Meeting, which basically means we needed an excuse to get together and smoke. Yes, I realize it was less than 24 hours after our regular pipe club meeting, but there really was a reason this time.

The Ozark Pipe Smokers had a special guest Friday. The pipe smoker known as "strongirish" joined us in a puff. Those who frequent the smoking forums, any of them really, probably know strongirish, or Earl, as he's known in real life. He's a regular contributor on so many of them, and he is one of pipe tobacco's most prolific reviewers. It often seems as though there are no tobaccos he hasn't tried, but more on that later.

Shop owner Frank Romeo and Earl share marvel over a David Tompkins elephant's foot.

What struck me is how readily this stranger fit into our circle, even as open as we are. Our group is open to those who smoke pipes, those who smoke cigars, those who smoke cigarettes (although we do push them toward the finer leaf), and even those who don't smoke, so long as they enjoy the room note and the company. The door is open and the coffee can at least be warmed up.
But here was a man who none of us had ever met, at least not in person. Some of us have read his words online, on the forums. I had even chatted with him and spoke with him on the phone. But seeing him face to face was something new.

Andrew, Earl and David Johnson

We showed off pipes, some made by others we knew on the forums, and we loaded up our bowls. Coincidentally, I had just received some South African tobaccos from a friend, tobaccos even Earl had not yet tried. They did leave something to be desired and made me long for some good old Cornell & Diehl. I'd expect to see a strongirish review soon, and knowing him, he'll have found something good about them.

Just for fun, some South African tobaccos that could have been much worse but made me grateful for the tobaccos available in America.

But there around that table, we all light up. We start swapping stories, stories about the tobacco we've smoked, the treasure we dug up in antique stores, and anything else we felt like lying about. It was as if all of us had been there the night before at the pipe club meeting and all the pipe club meetings before it. A happy meeting and the hopes of many more. The camaraderie of the pipe.

Travels of a Czech tool

2010-05-13T03:54:00.000-05:00

Consider the Czech tool, the three-part device from Heaven. Its tamper, so necessary to keep a bowl burning. It's poker, helping us stir our ash and granting the flame access to lower leaf. It's scoop, helping us remove dottle from the heel and scrape down the walls. So many uses, and each prong of the tool necessary to the enjoyment of the hobby.
These little silver contraptions are extensions of the fingers of an experienced smoker, and there is no real substitute. Tampers don't have the versatility, and pipe nails find themselves a little lacking. The Chinese versions? They don't even compare.

I know only two things about my Czech tools.
1) I like them when they are still stiff and hold their position easily.
2)They never stay that way.

The rigidity of these tools that I find so handy, keeping the prongs in place, at ready access upon my smoking whims, it disappears so quickly, as use leaves them spinning without friction to hold them. And mine had become victims of that inevitability. Both of them, for I always carry two. One hides in my pocket while the other rests in my pipe pouch, both within easy reach. The second is a backup, as small, necessary tools always seem to run off.
So far, I've always managed to keep two with me. Come with two, leave with two. But the last time I sat down to smoke with friends, I came with two well-used Czech tools and left with two Czech tools, one with the trademark smoothly-swinging prongs, yet the other resists my attempts to position its pieces. This can only mean one thing: The Czech tool is not mine. I picked up someone else's pipe tool.
I still have two Czech tools though, one in the pocket and one in the pouch, and I know of none lying around waiting to be claimed. So my original pipe tool must have found its way into new hands or a new pocket or a new pouch.
I wonder where it is. Is it having fun? Is it tamping good tobacco? Does it miss me? Will I ever see it again? If only I could ever answer these questions.

Give and Take and Give Again.

2010-05-05T22:39:00.002-05:00

I have never really been much of the religious type. I don't believe in spirits that walk the Earth. I don't believe in aliens that visit the Earth. I believe that, here on Earth, there is the most powerful, caring, and sometimes devastating force. What I believe in is the individual. Personal convictions have given us what we have and put us where we are today. There are those who raise their hands and volunteer themselves to fight in wars, spread the word of God, or simply donate their time or assets. These people are what I put my faith in. Personal conviction is a power that few understand, and that many put themselves so entirely into that they'd stop at very little to see it realized. On Earth, that personal conviction can be found in abundance. It is a truth, though, that some mans' convictions inflict negative scores on my beliefs, yet my own doctrine drives me to look for the positive. Every human has a role in his world, and I put faith in that. Semblance of society is tainted with those who have struggled to realize this; the men who murder, steal, and rape. These are the men who try my own, and many others, adherence to personal beliefs. This is where the beliefs of many align. These men will be put to justice, either in this life or the next.

I don't make it difficult for myself to recognize good, regardless of what I may see broadcast on the news or written in the papers. I see generosity and the derivatives of generosity abounding in the community that we've established around our love of tobacco. We understand how to slow down and inventory our thoughts. We understand how to give with the faith that the recipient will pay it forward. We are the most generous people, and all we ask in return is a good conversation. This generosity is not to make any personal gain. I think it's more a showing of how a man can give what he has and still have something to show for it.

As I sat to have an evening smoke in a pipe that was gifted to me all I could think about is how I'd pay this forward, and it gave me my idea for my very first piper's blog.

And now for something completely different...

2010-04-25T23:11:00.000-05:00

It all started with Neil Patrick Harris, this little idea of mine. It started when his character, Barney Stnison, created the "Bro Code," which has since been turned into a book for sale at retailers everywhere. Then there came "Man Law," which, like the "Bro Code," is a witty and insightful look into the relationships between men, renamed, however, to settle for accusations of copying while avoiding accusations of copy-write infringement. So today, I add only a small twist on this tried and true form of humor and introspection by introducing "Smoker Law."
The list that follows is, hopefully, not definitive. This is a preliminary list of laws from my own twisted mind. During Thursday's meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers, I will be soliciting additions and revisions to the list. The collaboration will continue with the members of Pipe Chat throughout the month of May. At the beginning of June, I hope to offer a definitive list, although I will still be more than happy to supplement "Smoker Law" at anytime.
Now, with all the formalities out of the way, I give you the preliminary "Smoker Law."

1. If the purpose of your gathering is, in part or in whole, the use and consumption of tobacco, any tobacco product or accessory on the table may be used by anyone in attendance. A smoker who uses another's tobacco need not ask permission but must offer some commentary on the blend. Pipes are excluded from general use but may be fondled and ogled at any time, again with commentary.

2. Anyone given a standing offer to help himself or herself to a friend's tobacco need never ask for permission. However, it is still necessary to acknowledge the taking of said tobacco. A simple "I stole a cigar" shall suffice.

3. Matches and lighters should be shared without hesitation, but a smoker should only hold the lighter while lighting for a member of the opposite sex.

4. It is permissable to share pipes but not encouraged. Those sharing should be family or closer.

5. Corncob pipes are still pipes, unless they are from China.

6. When showing off a new pipe, it is permissible to comment on its uniqueness, its craftsmanship, or the ridiculously low price paid for it. It is not acceptable to show off a new pipe to brag about how much you spent or how impressive a pipe you can afford. The exception occurs if said pipe purchase cause your divorce. Then anything goes.

7. It is only acceptable to encourage Pipe Acquisition Disorder (PAD) and Tobacco Acquisition Disorder (TAD). Such compulsive purchases may never be discouraged.

8. Pipes, cigars and cigarettes may be used as pointers to enhance a discussion or monologue, or in physical expression of general pontification. They may never be used as swords. Pretending they are lightsabers may result in expulsion from the social group or place of business.

9. Smokers should make a good faith effort to use tobacco away from non-smokers, but as soon as someone pretends to cough, the smoker is allowed to pretend to ignore the cougher. This is doubly true if the tobacco is unlit, in which case, the smoker may blow pretend smoke in the cougher's face.

10. Any pipe or cigar smoker living within 50 miles of a locally owned tobacconist specializing in his or her tobacco of choice must patronize the business at least four times per year. Within 10 miles, it shall be monthly at a minimum.

11. Any smoker insisting others use any high-end product, be it pipe or cigar or tobacco or accessory, should supply it. Anyone not willing to buy his friends a Dunhill needs to keep quiet about them.

12. When it comes to tobacco-fueled social gatherings, if it is not a lie, it's not worth telling.

Anyone reading this blog entry should feel free to add his or her own laws in the comments section. While there will be more official solicitations of feedback, inspiration should never be let go to waste.

So if today is the fourth Thursday...

2010-04-22T23:54:00.000-05:00

That's right, The Ozark Pipe Smokers have a rare fifth Thursday coming up and, therefore, a Fifth Thursday Meeting.
As with most fifth Thursdays, we do not have a heavily serious agenda, but there should be some fun. On the agenda are a well-postponed discussion of our annual slow-smoking contest, and I've got another fun exercise that should elicit a laugh or two, but I'll talk more about that this weekend.
On the smoking contest, we are hoping to build a schedule of events that will span more than one day. A two- or even three-day weekend might give people more reason to trek down to lowly northwest Arkansas and see the community they have seriously misjudged. My hope is that if we can plan a multiple-day event, we can count on the cooperation of some of the city agencies, like the Chambers of Commerce or Main Street Rogers.
Right now, we have our cornerstone event, the slow smoke, but we'd like to find more reasons for people to come here. The cigar smoke ring contest was also fun, and allowed us to extend the contest briefly, but I can't help thinking there is more we can do. More events will attract more people, and more people will attract more vendors, and more vendors will again attract more sellers. And with the right events, we could possibly put ourselves in the national pipe smoking spotlight, even to be in better position to host the International Pipe Smoking Competition.
So bring your ideas next Thursday or post them here. Any suggestions will help.

Tweener shapes

2010-04-20T22:46:00.001-05:00

On an intellectual level, it should be easy to name the shapes. You can tick most of them off on your fingers, right? We'll start with the common billiard, and then it's wild cousin, the Dublin. We'll toss in the fraternal twins, Canadian and lovat. There's the bulldog and the rhodesian, the poker and the cherrywood. We can run through the food and drink shapes, the brandy and apple and tomato and acorn. Don't forget the blowfish and the calabash, the wild shapes on the fringes. I can't think of any more off the top of my hand, so let's consult the chart.

"Borrowed" from Iwan Ries

Somehow I missed the Oom Paul, some how. How sad, considering how many of them I have. And the Zulu and the volcano (which is truly sad, considering how much the European volcanic ash has been in the news). And what the heck is a lumberman? I don't remember that one, or the cavalier, really. So there really aren't any left that don't fit, are there?

I came across a shape today at Romeo's that I hadn't seen before. I described it as a "stacked tomato," but it also had a bit of a freehand feel, or maybe it was a prince. And then there's that cutty that came through the shop that looked a little like the picture above without the nob at the bottom. And it kind of looked a little like the skate pipe that... that also isn't on the shape chart.

And there's a tankard that looks like the poker and the cherrywood or maybe a cross between, as if they were that far apart already.

Come to think of it, there's no saucer on that chart either, and without the acorn I mentioned earlier. Or is the acorn really a strawberry? I don't know if I'm moved more by the words of Shakespeare, who wrote, "A rose by any other name is just as sweet," or by the words of a forum friend, dukeofbluz, who said, "Why aren't you smoking yet?"

In case you missed it ...

2010-04-10T23:08:00.002-05:00

Our discussion at Thursday's meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers (after all the talk of fly fishing) revolved around the packing of pipes with tobacco. There was a wealth of information shared, and everyone marveled at the amount of research I had done. Of course I stole all the information from one well-outlined source.

A hearty thank you to Pipes Magazine for (unknowingly) supplying all the materials for our discussion. In Pipes Magazine, Bob Tate outlines six packing methods for filling a pipe. While I see no problems with his logic or his techniques, I only see four methods, along with a number of hybrids and variations that I don't count.

My first is the Three Step Method. This has been described in many ways, most often with the use of allegorical hands. In this method, you fill a third of the bowl and press down on it lightly or not at all, then fill the second third of the bowl and apply a little pressure, and then fill the final third of the bowl and squeeze it down a decent bit, although not hard enough to hamper the draw on the pipe. This is an easy, ritualistic method that is fantastic to teach to new smokers that will help them get the cadence of their new hobby. Variations of this technique have the smoker filling the bowl in only one or two steps with the same results.

Next is the Gravity Fill Method. This is by far the easiest of all packing techniques. As the name implies, you let gravity fill the bowl. Generally, however, this is only appropriate with cube-cut tobaccos or cuts that similarly fall into place and leave little space between the pieces.

The packing now gets a little harder, as next comes the Air Pocket Method. This technique is named for the space left between the bottom of the tobacco and the bottom of the bowl. I admit that, when I first learned of this one, I thought it a prank or an April Fools joke. This method works best with folded flakes, I find, but others use it with any tobacco. What you want is a "wad" of tobacco that is larger than the bowl. Squeeze it a little ways into the bowl and then continue pushing the tobacco into the bowl while twisting it. After it gets a good way into the bowl, you can twist off the excess still sticking out above the rim. You'll be surprised to find you still have a good draw, despite cramming all that tobacco into the bowl. The real benefit, though, is that when you put a pipe cleaner into the bowl, you can absorb all the moisture without any tobacco getting in the way. And then, as you smoke your way through the bowl, the tobacco will break free from the wad and fall into the bottom of the bowl.

Last up is the so-called Frank Method, although I'll admit there have been some disputes about who actually first discovered the technique. So, for our purposes, we'll call this the German Packing Method. And I'll also admit that I have yet to try this one, but there is a decent video series in three parts: I, II, and III. I'll echo Tate's feelings in recommending smokers do not use the torch lighter shown in this video. Torch lighters can damage your pipe, even if used correctly.

These packing methods are certainly not the only methods, but they form a good base to begin finding your way around the pipe. But nothing in pipe smoking is set in stone. I encourage experimentation in packing your pipe. Try plenty of methods. Alter them to your liking. Mix and match. Just two pieces of advice I'd like to pass on: Pack lighter than you think you should until you get the hang of it and take a draw through your pipe before lighting it to make it easier if you need to repack.

This month, there will be another pipe club meeting this month on the fifth Thursday, April 29. We didn't choose a topic for discussion, but I do have an idea I think will be enjoyable. I'm just going to keep it to myself until then.

A cautionary tale for smokers

2010-04-10T21:55:00.002-05:00

Occam's Razor states that the simplest answer is usually true. But sometimes a simple explanation isn't as satisfying. At 9:50 p.m. Wednesday, this alert arrived in my email.

Los Angeles Times | April 7, 2010 | 7:52 a.m.

FBI: Man tried to set off shoe bomb on United flight

Federal air marshals subdued a man who reportedly tried to light his shoes on fire aboard a United flight from Washington to Denver Wednesday night.

The man has been identified as Mohammed al Modadi, a diplomat in the Qatar embassy in Washington, according to the FBI. The FBI said he was the 3rd secretary and vice-consul, and that he had full diplomatic immunity.

Air marshals who were on the flight restrained al Modadi, according to the FBI.

Two jet fighters were scrambled from Buckley Air Force Base to accompany United flight 663 as it flew into Denver, where it landed safely.

Authorities say they believe the man was trying to set off a "shoe bomb," though they haven't confirmed the presence of explosive materials.

More soon at: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-united-shoe-bomb,0,7328739.story

More than two hours later, I received this.

Los Angeles Times | April 7, 2010 | 10 p.m.

Diplomat on plane was just trying to smoke

A Qatari diplomat trying to sneak a smoke in an airplane bathroom sparked a bomb scare Wednesday night on a flight from Washington to Denver, with fighter jets scrambled and law enforcement put on high alert, officials said.

No explosives were found on the man, and officials do not believe he was trying to harm anyone, according to a senior law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The incident sparked increased security at LAX.

More at: http://www.latimes.com

So what do we take from this lesson? It could be "look before your leap." It could be "assume the best in others." I prefer to think of this as a lesson about how people are getting much to quick to call smokers terrorists. But be careful when you light up that there's not an angry mob ready to tackle you for smoking before telling the authorities they thought you were a terrorist.

Anatomy of a makerover

2010-04-08T18:06:00.000-05:00

Romeo's is backward. The front is in the back and the back is in the front. Well, not exactly. The middle is in the front and the front is in the middle. So I guess Romeo's is really inside out. It all happened late last night, and I'd be lying if I said it was easy.

The look says it all. Good work is always exhausting.

Moving shelves and furniture is hard enough, but we ended up having to move one piece of furniture just to move another. It was like a giant Rubik's Cube or one of those picture puzzles where the pieces slide around. Four of us muscled everything around (me, Frank, Curtis and Jeff). There should have been more smoking, but our hands weren't empty often enough. There was drinking, although only three of us partook, so the average was lower.

Jeff surveys the new sitting area.

What we ended up with was a sitting area in the front, and all the shop business taking place in the middle. The cigar humidor is still in the back, but it is not so far removed from the point of sale anymore. What it means is a less convoluted means of moving from shopping to purchasing to enjoying. And the last thing customers will see as they leave is the friendly faces of all the smokers (mine included, most likely, as often as I'm there) enjoying their tobacco and each other's company.

Frank connecting the phone before he realized it was already connected on the other side of the room.

Likely there are some more changes that will come, minor tweaks and adjustments. Frank's wife has the final say over the setup. But I'll tell him and anyone else right now. If he has to put it back like it was, he does it alone. My back still hurts. But I'll be enjoying the new setup tonight when The Ozark Pipe Smokers test it out.

Pipe for Sale: Unsmoked Comoy's Spectrum

2010-04-05T01:22:00.006-05:00

This is a fantastic specimen, an unsmoked Comoy's Spectrum billiard (Shape 186). It comes in a set with this handsome Comoy's latching case and the matching tamper. The blue coloring apparent in the photos is more subdued in normal room lighting, but under a flash, the blue becomes quite brilliant.

We are offering the pipe at a price of $250 $200, which includes shipping. Those buying the pipe in person will be charged a reduced price, as no shipping will be involved.

The pipe weighs 50 grams and measures 5.75 inches in length. The bowl is 7/8 inches wide and 1 5/8 inches deep.

To buy the pipe, contact Frank at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co. during regular business hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time weekdays or 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time on Saturdays), either in person or by phone at (479) 636-PIPE. Romeo's accepts phone payments via PayPal only. Credit cards are accepted for in-store purchases. First come, first served.

TOPS real next meeting

2010-04-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

Hopefully the Easter ham is helping you all forget the pain of learning TOPS was becoming a "top" club and the further pains of realizing you fell for an April Fool's joke. I could tell you that I regret doing that to you all, that I hate myself for putting you through it. That would be a lie, but I could tell you that.
So Thursday, April 8, The Ozark Pipe Smokers will definitely be smoking and shooting the bull at Romeo's. There's just a few things to remember before you show up.
I don't want to alarm anyone, but this is the last week (and not even a full week) to get your blog entries in and earn entry into the raffle for one unopened pouch of Edgeworth Ready Rubbed. You can tell from the entries that your chances are still good, and this classic tobacco is no longer available in stores. Don't miss out.

Aside from our normal discussions of fly fishing and how much we need to plan a pipe smoker's day out (and yes, we really need to), we will be talking some time during Thursday's meeting to discuss pipe packing techniques. Hopefully there will be some methods that will be new for everyone.

The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. and continues until the cool kids go home. You don't have to be a member to join, so join us and bring your pipes.

TOPS to take new direction

2010-04-01T01:15:00.000-05:00

The Ozark Pipe Smokers will be reforming their club in a desire to go in a new direction. Beginning today, the club will no longer be dedicated to pipe smoking, but will instead be devoted to the children's toy after which the club is named. Everything from dreidels to battle tops will be on display and discussed at today's first meeting under our renewed purpose. We realize that there will be some pipe smokers disappointed by this decision, but we feel it is for the good of the group. As pipe smokers, the meetings were plagued with bitterness and animosity we have found is common to pipe smokers. We hope to see you all out with your favorite top of your youth.

Pipe for Sale: Paul Becker

2010-03-28T22:56:00.004-05:00

SOLD!

This is obviously a new feature on the blog, but the staff at Romeo's wants to start offering some of their pipes online. This is the first.

What we have up for sale is a beautiful pipe by the German carver Paul Becker. It was lightly smoked (and not in the exaggerated eBay sense) and well cared for. It is being sold in clean, ready-to-smoke condition.

We are offering the pipe at a price of $150, which includes shipping. Those buying the pipe in person will be charged a reduced price, as no shipping will be involved.

The pipe ways in at 50 grams and measures just under six inches in length. The bowl is just under one inch wide and 1.5 inches deep.
To buy the pipe, contact Frank at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co. during regular business hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time weekdays or 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time on Saturdays), either in person or by phone at (479) 636-PIPE. Romeo's accepts phone payments via PayPal only. Credit cards are accepted for in-store purchases. First come, first served.

Taking the party online

2010-03-28T02:23:00.000-05:00

I'll admit that I spend way too much time at Romeo's pipe shop. (And no, contrary to popular belief, I'm not associated with the shop, let alone the owner.) It's my second home, and maybe my third. My wife thinks I spend too much time there, but she also recognizes that I come home much happier than when I left. And while hanging out during business hours can bring you in contact with lots of enjoyable people, while you clear your tampers and pipe cleaners off the seat to make room.
It's still no comparison to the pipe club meetings, where you pack the room or fill a table or pile around an ash tray with people you look forward to seeing all month long. But you can't hang out all the time, can you?
There are, however, places where the gatherings only slow, not stop. And if you're reading this, I'll assume you have the means to find your way to them. Online pipe forums are a fantastic way to reach out to pipers all over the country. And each one has it's own personality.
The biggest is Smokers Forums, an extremely large community and a wealth of institutional knowledge. If you have a question, expect an answer fairly quickly. There are people who know answers to questions you haven't even thought to ask yet. There is a formality to Smokers Forums. It's very similar to a country lodge meeting, with a kind of parliamentary procedure to it but not without it's charms.
But another forum corners the market on corncob information. Corncobs and Briar was started by John Patton, who some call the Cobfather. He is the founder of the Corncob Snob Society and the author of the Corncob Primer, the definitive work on the subject.
And there are plenty of forums around the Web, including The Pipe Smoker's Forum and Brothers of Briar. All it takes is a quick Google search to find at least some of them.
The one I spend most of my time at is Pipe Chat, which may be the most sarcastic of all the forums. I joke sometimes that Smokers Forums is where you go to learn about pipe smoking, but Pipe Chat is where you go to enjoy your smoke once you light up.
I know what you're thinking: "Isn't this a little bit nerdy?" Yes, yes it is. And sometimes it gets a little more nerdy than others. Guys will talk about wood grain and pipe shapes and tobacco blenders almost intensely as Star Wars geeks (with all due respect to geeks everywhere), and occasionally the high-end vs. low-end pipe discussion gets as heated as if it were the great debate over whether Han or Greedo shot first.
I truly believe there's a forum out there for everyone. And when you find it, say hello to TommyTree. I'll say hello back.

Retort from a Bulldog

2010-03-25T17:41:00.005-05:00

"I'm a What? Hey! Who are you calling a "FAT PUPPY?!"
"I have been around for a long time and my owner looks most dignified when he is smoking ME! Ha! So there! I am beautiful, on the inside and out. My diamond shaped shank, a work of art. This "bulging waistline" is sexy curves and lines that should be bronzed; some say I could be the eighth wonder of the world.
"But not my owner, he's always grabbing for that short fat stubby 'prince.' FROG is right! I agree with you there Billiard. Hey, I gotta finish this later, the old guy's taking me for a smoke. I hope he packs me with some Maltese Falcon or maybe some well aged Squadron Leader. After all I am English you know. Tea time. Tally ho."

Confessions of a Billiard

2010-03-25T11:31:00.004-05:00

Written by Jeff Neisler
"I really just need to get this off my chest and the only good reason is some psycho babble I once heard about confession bringing about healing … bla …. bla…bla. Anyway I’ve began to be completely annoyed by my owner’s constant need to bring new pipes into the rack.

"I just can’t understand why he needs another when he already has the perfect pipe. Just look at me. Perfect posture, a perfectly proportioned body and shank, equal amounts of wood from every angle of the bowl, I just don’t get it.
"Don’t get me wrong I’m not necessarily a racist; I am just beginning to get annoyed by all this diversity. Just take a look at some of owner’s recent pipe acquisitions. For example, he calls one his “bulldog” and I’m thinking, 'Are you kidding me?' He looks more like a fat puppy with that bulging waistline and just look at the angles of his shank… perfection he ain’t.
"But the one that really got me steamed was when owner recently (in what he gleefully likes to call his PAD) added one he calls his “prince.” Now that one really stuck in my crawl. With that short fat stubby bowl I’d call him anything but a “prince;” maybe a frog would be a better name.
"Anyway, I rant. All I really crave is more of my owner’s attention, the warmth of a fine bowl of Virginia coursing through my veins… but alas it seems like most days now I just get to sit here and breathe more of that damned fresh air.
"Well anyway, I better shut up or he’s gonna go out and bring a stupid looking blowfish home."

The Never-Ending Journey

2010-03-22T16:14:00.006-05:00

The great thing about the pipe smoking hobby is you can take it as far as you want. Most of us probably go too far but thats part of the fun. Some pipers get into the search for the "perfect pipe", others journey for a lifetime in search of the perfect tobacco, then there are the tamper collectors, and the pipe puffer who needs the perfect lighter for every occasion.
My journey has always been tobaccos. Occasionally someone will post on a forum that they've indeed found their "perfect tobacco", then, of course the "Desert Island" posts pop up a few times (or more) a year. My thought is always, "Why limit yourself?" (Of course, as with all things in life, spendable cash plays a major role!) And while I have my favorites, part of the enjoyment for me is looking forward to trying something new.
Sure, I could probably enjoy the rest of my pipe smoking life puffing away on tobaccos I consider to be "staples": McClelland #2010, 2015. Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake and Proper English, C&D Three Friars, Bayou Morning, and Haunted Bookshop. But really! Who wants to stop there? Many other blends await that I have yet to try. And thats not counting the many blends that will be born in the future.
Even now, although limited in the amount I can smoke, the "tug" of another journey is strong, leading me to contemplate a trip to an area B&M for a tin or two I can't find locally. So here's to the possible start of another Journey! What will it be this time? Possibly Aurora? Maybe Beacon? Union Square? Dorchester or Dunbar? One of Butera's Royal Vintage? I cannot be sure where this journey will lead, but I am certain it will be a pleasant one! What will your next journey bring?

With the emphasis on brotherhood

2010-03-20T15:55:00.000-05:00

There's not a whole lot of value to a pipe club, right? I mean, you show up and do nothing but smoke and shoot the bull for a few hours. The city's problems don't get solved, let alone the world's. You swap stories and try new blends, but that doesn't help you live a long, happy life despite regular use of a life-shortening leaf.
Or does it?

We talked briefly at the last meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers about Zack's involvement with Reel Recovery, an organization that tries to encourage physical and spiritual renewal, through a shared experience with rod and reel, in men overcoming cancer. The focus of the retreats is not on fishing but on creating emotional connections between men with shared experiences. Men have done this for years, but recently we've begun calling it "male bonding."
There are plenty of studies that show significant benefits from friendship, including 2007's "Friendship, social support, and health" by Patricia M. Sias and Heidi Bartoo and 2005's "Social networks and health: It's time for an intervention trial" by Anthony F. Jorm. To summarize very briefly, friendships not only lend themselves to promoting healthier lifestyles and aid in psychological maturity but also impact the physical body in a way that encourages good health from within.
So how does this apply to the pipe? Specifically, how can I insinuate pipe smoking is healthy when we're using that horribly dangerous tobacco?
When tobacco was used as a facet of life, along with regular meat and potato dinners, there was no reason to form a community around it. People smoked, and that's all it was. It wasn't a personal hobby, and it wasn't a communal activity. It was just something that happened while everything else was going on. The irony, then, is that by promoting the unhealthy nature of tobacco, anti-smoking activists have actually made some forms of smoking healthier.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not talking about cigarettes, but it's not simply because they're cigarettes. Bonding can't be done in a single cigarette. It can't happen during two cigarettes, each smoked in seven and a half minutes to fill up a fifteen minute work break. This also isn't about snuff or snus or chewing tobacco, all of which are intended for use during the course of the day.
Now we come to pipes and cigars. Both can be smoked in solitude, as a form of meditation or an aid to concentration or relaxation, and these benefits should not be overlooked. But then both can also draw people together for the simple pleasure of enjoying these forms of tobacco, fostering joy and friendship, fellowship and camaraderie. It is in these moments that pipe smoking may have its greatest benefits, by allowing a state of emotional and spiritual restoration through communion with others in the form of tobacco. It is akin to the sweat lodges and wilderness retreats, where men join together in brotherhood. This is the brotherhood of the briar.
This form of renewal is becoming a rarity as progress becomes history and possibility becomes the norm, as we become more familiar with David Letterman and Matt Lauer and Howard Stern than we are with the people with whom we share a city, our neighbors and our coworkers and our family and our friends.
But a simple piece of wood, a few leaves and some matches can restore the bonds of friendship and brotherhood we have left behind.

Tobacco tratement

2010-03-15T21:06:00.004-05:00

During our last club meeting many topics were touched upon, one of them was the the preservation of ones favorite blend, and what happens in those wonderful little tins over time. I'm no tobacco aficionado, but if it passed the sniff test it gets loaded. However, since joining the club I've learned a lot, tried a bunch of blends, started collecting pipes , and most importantly piqued my curiosity of the world of tobacco (especially the curing and aging).
Heeding Tom's raffling lure of some premo tobacco and trying to answer some of the questions raised, I did some research and here is the short story:

After the tobacco leaves are picked they are dried in five different ways. Flue, Kiln, Air, Sun and Fire. The last is how pipe tobacco is dried. Generally dark brown, low in sugar but high nicotine content. Tobacco leaves are placed in a curing barn and various woods are burned to acquire desired aroma & flavor. This process can take up to four weeks. The goal of the all drying method is to allow the carotenoids in the leaf to oxidize and the starch converted to sugar. Some manufacturers pack the dried leaves in large bails and let them age for up to five years.

After the tobacco is cut, blended and placed in those lovely little tins, that's when the party really starts.

Over a long period of time, biological activities coupled with organic reactions, change the contents resulting in those wonderful qualities we so much enjoy.

Fermentation begins with the aerobic stage via bacteria that consume the sugars until they run out of oxygen and die. At this point anaerobic reactions take place via enzymes take place & continue until one of us pops the cap.

The benefits of contributing

2010-03-13T02:48:00.000-06:00

At Thursday's meeting, I announced an incentive to encourage my brothers and sisters of the briar to contribute to this humble blog. Between now and the next meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers, contributors will be entered into a drawing for an unopened pouch of Edgeworth Ready Rubbed.

There is a slight catch. I will consider posts from anyone, be they club members, attendees or those whom I have never met, but to claim the prize, you have to be in attendance at the next meeting. Those writing can receive one entry for each week that they contribute to the blog for a maximum four entries. I reserve the right to accept or reject any entry, but I am not a man to deny aspiring writers. Topics can be on almost anything, so long as there is at least a passing connection to pipe smoking. Please keep it clean and have fun. A few suggestions for topics: Advice for new smokers, your own experiences with the pipe, funny anecdotes about the hobby, random thoughts you had while smoking (tobacco only, please).

You can submit stories via email (contact me for an email address). Club members can also request to be added to the list of contributors allowed direct access for posting blog entries.

Good luck to all of you. I can't wait to see what you add.

In case you missed it ...

2010-03-13T02:22:00.000-06:00

Smokers packed into the lounge at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co., a nice mix of old friends and new. And amidst the talk of failed tobacco taxes and advanced fly fishing techniques, there was a lengthy conversation about cellaring and aging. While we understand our questions more clearly, we definitely didn't find any answers.

In our discussions, we agreed on a few basic principals. Jars are better than bags. Tins are preferable overall. Virginias age well for quite a long time. Burleys, not so much. Aromatics, generally not at all. And latakia mellows, which may or may not be preferable to the smoker.
What we really did was start a conversation that may never end, but it is an enjoyable topic for continued talks for many years to come, letting our words and discussions become richer as they age with our tobacco. I invite any who wish to join us next month when we'll again gather to talk and smoke and laugh. There will be a new topic to discuss: We've chosen to talk about pipe packing techniques, so there is plenty of information and numerous divergent views on the subject.

A change in habit

2010-03-06T23:57:00.000-06:00

Many men and women have turned to the pipe to escape the grasp of cigarettes. The path from one to the other, however, is long and windy and often doubles back on itself.

As a former cigarette smoker, I am still attracted to the ease with which one can grab and light and smoke a cigarette, start to finish, and discard it with less than a thought. I still smoke socially with one or two of my friends, just a few on occasion, probably five or six last month, if that. But in their stead, I have added the little cigar.
Some will call these little cigars "cigarillos," but I tell you now there is a difference. By my definition, cigarillos are often hand-wrapped or at least have that appearance. They may be flavored or natural, but they look like what Clint Eastwood had sticking out of the corner of his mouth in all of his westerns.
Little cigars (and again, this is just my definition) look almost exactly like a cigarette. They have a filter and a tightly machine-rolled wrapper. The difference is they are usually covered in a cigar wrapping instead of a cigarette paper. And even if they are flavored, they taste an awful lot like a cigarette.
As far as price, little cigars are cheaper than cigarillos, but that's because the cigarillo is a higher quality product. Until taxation catches up, little cigars are often cheaper than cigarettes too.
And I have smoked them both. Generally, I smoke these as a substitute for cigarettes. I don't want to return to my former addiction, having since turned it into a bona fide habit. And I was able to smoke them less often than my pack-a-day-plus cigarette days, but there were and are still times when I chose the little cigar or cigarillo over the pipe because of it's ease to smoke.
But that is changing, and it's mostly because of the taste. Maybe my palate is improving, or maybe I've become spoiled by the high quality of tobacco I've smoked, but I now often think of turning for a little cigar and find myself craving a pipe.
The lesson here is that there is hope to be found in pipes for those seeking to rid themselves of cigarettes, who, like me, want to denounce their addiction for a less dangerous hobby, even if it takes them a few more minutes to get to their smoke. Good luck to all who are on that journey.

Pipe Club Preview

2010-03-05T03:43:00.000-06:00

So once again we're preparing to gather, choosing the right pipes, the right tobacco, the right anecdotes. We are rapidly approaching the time each month we set aside time to meet to share leaf and lies with good smoke and better friends. And it seems like a lot has happened since the last time we met.

The Ozark Pipe Smokers will meet at 6:30 p.m. on March 11 at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co., but all are welcome. This time last month, we were supposed to talk about cellaring tobacco, which seemed increasingly appropriate with H.R. 4439 hanging over our heads. Now that threat is seemingly gone, and we can have our discussion of storing and collecting and aging tobaccos without the overwhelming need to store and collect and age tobacco before the tax hits.
We do still have a raffle for those who signed petitions opposing 4439. Just bring some proof of sending. The prize is a good one, and it's not available anymore, if that gives you a clue.
We're also going to have an announcement about this blog, which I don't think you'll need to miss. Let's just say there might be something in it for you if you contribute.
But, of course, the focus of our meeting will be the fellowship we share with lit pipes and wagging tongues. Good times, my friends. Good times.

Did we do it? Looks like somebody did.

2010-02-27T00:51:00.000-06:00

So despite our strong misgivings, our deep doubts, our unshakeable belief that the government will never listen to we few pipe smokers, we put our signatures on petitions and sent letters and called our elected officials, knowing deep in our hearts that nothing was going to change and that a 775 percent pipe tobacco tax hike was inevitable. We were right ... and wrong. Right in the action we took, right in the stand we made, right in coming together in brotherhood to fight against what we saw as unjust. We were just wrong about one thing.
We were wrong that it wouldn't work.

But before you all run around singing "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead," we have to get some details out of the way.
The following was posted by Ronnie B. of Night Owl Pipe Works on the Smokers Forums on Friday evening. It is a statement reportedly from the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association. In the interest of full disclosure, I was unable to find this statement on the IPCPR Web site or anywhere else directly related to the group, but I have no reason to doubt the statement either, as it matches information I have received elsewhere. So with no further ado, here's the victory speech.

"At this time, H.R. 4439, proposed federal legislation to increase the pipe tobacco tax to the same rate of the RYO tax, has little life or attention in Congress. Lobbyists from the IPCPR the Pipe Tobacco Council (a division of the Cigar Association of America (CAA)), and others have met with key members of Congress to discuss and detail our industry's opposition to the bill. H.R. 4439 is currently sitting in the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways & Means Committee. No hearings or further action has been scheduled at this time nor do we expect any immediate action. Several more meetings are scheduled with Congress in the coming days."

Please do not take this to mean the fight is over and we have won forever. It is possible that, by next year, Congress will have forgotten it's tiff with the roll-your-own tobacco manufacturers. It's possible the legislators could forget all about us lowly pipe smokers. It's possible that Washington could roll back all it's taxes in favor smaller government. It could.
But what's likely to happen is that, at some point, this bill or another like it or a completely different one with a similar aim. We live to fight another day, but we will have to fight another day.
In the meantime, though, it is once again alright to pace your spending. You don't need to stock up on everything right now. Get some tobacco this week, some next week, some the week after. It's once again alright to buy by the ounce instead of the pound. You don't need to take out a loan to fill your cellar. You might have to next year, but at least you have some breathing room for now.
Well, that's it. Go ahead and dance. I'll join in too.
"Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wicked witch, the wicked witch. Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead ..."

Some good news

2010-02-21T22:33:00.000-06:00

During Saturday's St. Louis pipe show, I spoke with the gentlemen from Cornell & Diehl. I have no way to verify this, but they told me that HR 4439, the bill that threatens a 775% pipe tobacco tax increase, has come up twice before the Ways and Means Committee and both times was quickly dismissed as a waste of effort in light of more pressing matters. It looks like we have the glimmer of a hope. Everyone who is fighting this, keep up the good work. We might make it through to the other side.

Thoughts of St. Louis

2010-02-21T22:30:00.000-06:00

I'm just back from the St. Louis pipe show. I have less money and more friends, which seems like a fair tradeoff. I'm also coming back with a lot of tobacco, some old favorites to stash away, some new blends to try, and an old favorite that has become a rarity.

Rather than tell you in great detail how great a time I had, because it seems only natural that a piper immersed in pipes and tobaccos would have a good time, I'd like to tell you about the people I met.

Pipe people, as a rule, are generous, friendly and welcoming. It is their distinct honor and pleasure to speak with you, not because of who you are or aren't, but really just for the conversation. They are there for the good time, which is also a time of relaxing, mental renewal and camaraderie. Of course, you're reading this because you're one of them, so you already know this.

The fun part of the pipe show, meanwhile, is that it starts before it starts. On Friday night, with the main event still more than 12 hours away, hotel room doors were propped open for anyone wandering by to stop in. Inside, they have a chair and some chatter. Maybe they have their wares out for early sales. Maybe they have some food or drink. They'll share stories and smoke and for a little while you'll forget that you're far from home, living for a night or two in a place where sheets are changed en masse and breakfast is free if it's continental. You wander from door to door, stopping in to say hi, introducing yourself, trying to figure out if your paths will cross in the future and hoping they do.

As the show starts, you wander some more, stopping to say hi the the people you met the night before. They remember you, and you notice that some of their wares have been claimed by eager buyers. And you also notice that you're happy for them, rooting for people you didn't know the night before because they are now among your friends, joined by a common practice. Walking around the tables for the fifth time, because you keep seeming to miss things, you admire the carvers, who will be glad to tell you about their labors. You've seen their pipes before, but you never really appreciated them until you saw them in the carver's wrinkled hands.

The knowledge in the room is overwhelming. There are people who have been carving most of their lives, or blending, or puffing. There are experts in everything from tampers to corn cobs to all of those wonderful blends a new smoker will probably never have the opportunity to try. You leave the show with a full bag, full of pipes and tobacco that will bring back memories for years. You also leave with an empty wallet, but who could blame you in that wealth of artistry and passion for a shared hobby. You also leave rich, filled with the experience and knowledge you gained over the span of just a few hours.
The Chicago pipe show is in May. Kansas City's is in June. Both should offer more of the same.

The pipe cleaner conspiracy

2010-02-18T23:23:00.000-06:00

You know it's coming. It doesn't matter how good your pipe is or the quality of your tobacco. Sooner or later, you will get a gurgle. They say a good pipe will never gurgle, but they do. Properly drilled draft holes, properly aged briar, a solid cake around the bowl, these all help. But if you smoke your pipe, it will eventually gurgle. And if you're lucky enough to avoid that, you still need to clean the pipes, give them a quick swab after you smoke.
And then, one day, you find yourself with plenty of pipes, plenty of tobacco, lighters full and matches aplenty, and you think you're ready to light up. Until you reach for your pipe cleaners. Where those long, fuzzy swabs once were, you find only air. The pipe shop is still open, so you figure you'll run in real quick.
And then they have you.

Quite frankly, pipe cleaners are a conspiracy of the smoking industry. The pipe makers, tobacco blenders and even the guys who make the nifty pipe cases joined together to find a necessary accessory that would bring you in so they could hook you. Because there is only one inalienable truth among pipe smokers:
You cannot buy just pipe cleaners.
You go into the shop, and the pipe cleaners are there on the shelf. Maybe they're next to the lighters. Well, who has enough lighters. You're always losing them. Or maybe they're next to the tobacco. You're going to smoke it eventually anyway, so why not get it now. Or, worst of all, it's next to the pipes. But you won't buy that pipe right away (although you'll have to buy something else, just to tide you over). You'll keep that image in your mind, dwell on it, obsess over it. And then, when you come back, you'll buy that one plus the one next to it, or on the next shelf over, or the one in the display case near under the really bright lights that just make it sparkle.
There are a few reasons for this, at least the way I see it. You can't leave a pipe shop with only pipe cleaners because you feel like a tightwad spending only $2, especially if you didn't bring cash and have to pay with a credit or debit card. There is nothing worse than pulling out plastic to buy something worth less than the pocket change you emptied onto your dresser the night before.
Second, there is always something new at your pipe shop. There's a tobacco you haven't tried or a pipe you haven't seen before or a cigar line the tobacconist just started carrying. Something will always catch your eye. And let's face it, there's nothing worse than passing on a pipe only to see someone else smoking it the next time you come in.
Lastly, you can't leave with only pipe cleaners because you never intended to in the first place. Go ahead, lie to yourself and say I'm wrong. You know how many pipe cleaners you have. It's impossible not to notice, since they are always in sight somewhere in your smoking area. And if you needed more, you could have easily picked some up when you were at the shop last week. You bought a pipe and all that tobacco and a few more dollars would have stocked you up on the white cotton probes nicely. But if you would have bought pipe cleaners then, you wouldn't have to buy them now, and then you wouldn't have an excuse to buy a new pipe or a new tobacco or a new stand that will so nicely hold all of these pipe cleaners.
You see, there really is a pipe cleaner conspiracy, only it's not with all those industry insiders. It exists only within yourself.
But really, what's wrong with that? Everybody loves a good conspiracy.

Others joining in

2010-02-14T12:48:00.000-06:00

I'm posting a link here to The Eager Beaver's Briar, where Justin Bain has posted an interview with Jeff Steinbock from Uhle's Tobacco Company in Wisconsin about the proposed pipe tobacco tax in H.R. 4439.
It does look like The Ozark Pipe Smokers and Steinbock are on the same page when he says:

Local groups, shops, etc. need to band together and fight, putting aside economic competition.

It's a good interview, one that doesn't pull any punches or make believe that a simple petition is going to change the voting outcome. Yes, I know TOPS is sending out a form letter, but that is only the start to help us present our position our representative.

In case you thought you missed it ...

2010-02-13T20:59:00.000-06:00

We had a terrific meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers, but it was only a small meeting. For whatever reason, it was a light turnout. We still had fun and enjoyed each other's company, but there were only a few of us. So we decided to hold off on all the goodies we had planned, including our discussion of cellaring techniques and the raffle of an unopened tin of Dunhill Early Morning Pipe to those who signed the Pipes Magazine petition against HR 4439. We'll pick those up during our March 11 meeting.

Pipe Club Preview

2010-02-10T00:15:00.001-06:00

The Ozark Pipe Smokers will be meeting again Thursday, Feb. 11. All who bring donuts will be welcomed. All who don't bring donuts will also be welcomed, but do you really want to take the chance?

While this pipe club meeting will undoubtedly follow the well-established pattern of lots of smoking and lots of idle chatter, we also would like to have some constructive discussions, like we did last month when Jeff gave us a detailed demonstration of pipe restoration. This month's topic is cellaring tobacco. Come with examples of your cellaring efforts. You don't have to bring the actual tobacco if you're willing to talk about how you cellar your tobacco. Bringing samples of cellared tobacco for everyone to share is not necessary but would be a lot more fun. We'll see you and your pipes there.

Symbolic Gesture of the Week

2010-02-06T20:51:00.001-06:00

Murry rubs out some Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake onto a printed copy of H.R. 4439.

The business at hand

2010-02-06T20:48:00.000-06:00

After a productive meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers (as productive as a pipe club meeting can be), the club is ready to move forward with its opposition to H.R. 4439. This is posted here both as an informational tool for our members and as inspiration for clubs and other individuals with the same goal elsewhere in the United States.

As a reminder, H.R. 4439 is a proposed resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives that would raise the federal pipe tobacco tax rate 775%. The resolution can be read in its entirety here. It is a short read.
TOPS' immediate goal is to provide form letters allowing local pipe smokers, or smokers of any tobaccos, to sign and send them to their local representatives. The draft letter is as follows. Feel free to suggest any improvements in the comments section.

Representative John Boozman,

I am contacting you today over an issue that is of great importance to me, and I am relying on your continued willingness to aid your constituents.

My concern is with H.R. 4439, the Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010, which was introduced Jan. 13, 2010, and would raise the tax on pipe tobacco 775% from $2.8311 to $24.78 per pound. The proposed legislation, introduced by Representatives Steve Cohen (Dem., TN) and Lloyd Doggett (Dem., TX), has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, which includes Mr. Doggett among its membership.

I am asking you to vote NO to H.R. 4439.

You are no doubt aware that your constituency is comprised of the salt of the work laborers who bore this country to greatness on their hunched back. Ours is a tradition of labor and sweat, of building strength and character through our work and our leisure. The pipe, more in this state than in many others, is intertwined with our history, with our culture and with our identity. H.R. 4439 would threaten that very way of life.

Under H.R. 4439, pipe smokers could still have their pipes, but filling them with tobacco could become a hardship. A 775% tax increase on pipe tobacco, levied against the working class, would threaten to remove the pipe as a symbol of the hard work and sacrifice that has established Arkansas as the nation's foundation and the United States as the enduring superpower.

Pipe smokers will not be alone in their hardships should H.R. 4439 pass. Retail tobacconists would stand to lose loyal and valuable customers. Many of these valuable small businesses, already suffering due to 2009's tobacco tax increases, would be forced to close their doors, succumbing to a rough economy made worse by unreasonable legislation.

The tax increase would make pipe smokers pay for the sins of others. The $24.78 per pound tax rate was applied to roll-your-own cigarette tobacco, but those selling that product, instead of paying the new tax rates, re-labeled cigarette tobacco as pipe tobacco to take advantage of a lower tax rate.

I do not believe the intent of the legislators, in passing 2009's tobacco tax rates, was to eventually hammer pipe smokers with drastically increased tax rates. The rates, including an increased tax on pipe tobacco, were set for a reason. It would be in the spirit of that legislation to ensure tobacco companies paid the rates the law requires rather than punish those who are already acting within the letter and spirit of the law. 

I wish to thank you for your attention to my concerns and for your vote AGAINST H.R. 4439.

Sincerely,

[Signature]

Our goal for this letter was to provide a more anecdotal, localized letter that might complement the generalized, fact-based letter being distributed by Pipes Magazine. TOPS hopes to provide these letters to any tobacco retailer in northwest Arkansas willing to distribute them to customers.
The organization's next step will be to approach U.S. Rep. John Boozman and request a meeting. It would be the club's honor to host him at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co., where the impact of this resolution would be seen most clearly. Assuming the Congressman accepts the invitation, we will provide notice of our meeting with the Congressman, and all members are encouraged to attend. Those who cannot attend can submit comments or questions that will be forwarded to the Congressmen.
Any suggestions on how we can best help our elected officials defeat this tax increase are gratefully received. Thank you to all of you, in Arkansas and around the country, who are working on this issue.

Man check

2010-02-06T20:22:00.000-06:00

Before we get to the important business covered at today's meeting, we have one bit of little business to get to: Who manned up and smoked Mixture No. 79?

Yes, I smoked it. We all knew that was going to happen. And I was joined in my act of daring by Frank (pictured) and Allam. This group represented barely a quarter of those gathered. (Honorable mention goes to Neil, who arrived after the meeting, couldn't stay to smoke the nasty stuff there, but took a sample home that he actually seemed excited to smoke.)
Nine people put their tails between their legs and covered their bowls rather than live life on the edge and smoke the 79.
The stuff isn't as bad as it's been billed. Really, it's not. It's better than people give it credit for, but that's nothing to be proud about either. I lit the bowl way too easily. For a blend that disastrous, you wouldn't want it to come easy too. I wanted to struggle through the bowl, fighting to keep relighting the bowl and fighting to force myself to keep smoking it. Sadly, it smokes rather easily.
But an easy smoke is not substitution for a good smoke, and this is no good smoke. The pouch reeks (in the worst sense of the word) of black licorice. Even a bag of black licorice isn't as strong as the aroma in the pouch. But the pouch aroma, thankfully and mercifully, fails to carry though into the bowl. Upon lighting, the licorice is replaced with the distinct aroma of a heavy, flowery perfume. It's right there in the bowl, as if someone took one of those old-fashioned perfume bottles (the ones with the long hose and rubber pump) and spritzed it all over the tobacco. At least, I hope it was all over the tobacco, because the tobacco's gone. If it was all over the bowl, I may have to retire that pipe, and I like that pipe.
The perfume, as it turns out, is a necessity for this tobacco. It really helps the blend. Because the base tobacco is apparently cardboard. At it's heart, Mixture No. 79's flavor is a combination of stale wood, construction paper and a childhood's worth of arts and crafts.
This is a tobacco that goes in phases. The above was the first phase. Halfway down the bowl, the tobacco briefly turned sour. it was probably sour already, but for a minute or so, it got much worse. Maybe I was smoking it too fast, but it's not possibly to reach the bottom of this blend too quickly.
After the sourness, I lost all flavor through the bottom of the bowl. That's right, absolutely no flavor. I've gotten more from a Marlboro Ultra Light, back when they were still allowed to call them that.
Honestly, it wasn't a terrible smoke. It was the worst I've had so far, but I'm sure it can easily be beaten. It could have been much worse. But does that mean I'll smoke it again? Not unless someone's life depends on it.
Of course this doesn't mean everyone shares my thoughts on No. 79. Apparently a lot of people smoke it, since Frank immediately recognized the aroma as the same one permeating some of the estate pipes he has for sale.

Time to man up

2010-02-05T21:11:00.000-06:00

I received a pouch of tobacco in the mail today. This is one I always wondered if I'd try. Frankly, I kind of wondered if I was man enough to smoke it. Well, the time has come to find out. Let's face it: This ain't just any tobacco. This is Mixture No. 79.

The pouch gives little information. There's no description. There's no aroma, but it would have to seep through the pouch, the box and the cellophane wrapping.
To get the Tale of the Tape, we turn to tobaccoreviews.com. According to this site, which can provide interesting information on a blend, there is a tin description.

"Rich burley tobaccos, blended to the original, time-honored formula of the Sutliff's of California, maintains the tradition of this perennial favorite. A topping of natural vanilla flavoring gives this basic pipe tobacco blend a soft, sweet aroma to enhance its already mild, biteless, round taste."

That sounds pretty harmless, right? There is more information on it, like the following descriptive:
Average Ratings
Strength: Mild to Medium
Flavoring: Medium to Strong
Taste: Medium to Full
Room Note: Tolerable
Recommendation: Somewhat Recommended
So there's a "tolerable" room note and it's "somewhat recommended." That sounds less than promising. Let's see what else we can find in the reviews below.
Big Blue Jazzman said, "When I was a lad my mother overheard me saying a foul word. She made me smoke a bowl of Mixture 79. I have not used that word since."
Nick O'Teen called it "Fear & Loathing in a pipe bowl." Old Schoolr called it "foul in the extreme." Zone Smoke said, "Soak some cardboard in your grandmother's perfume and you will have Mixture 79 in bulk. Horrid. Simply horrid."
But my favorite one came from zulujerk: "If you were ever curious enough to wonder what it would be like to smoke a urinal cake, here you go."
And we're going to try it. No, I didn't say I'm going to try it. I said we're going to try it. Anyone with any intestinal fortitude at all is welcome to try some at tomorrow's meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers. In addition to discussing HR 4439, we'll surely be, as usual, lighting up our pipes.
I have 1.5 ounces of the 79. Now who's joining me?

Pipe Ponderings: Waxing pathetic

2010-02-03T22:25:00.000-06:00

(Author's note: The following has nothing to do with tobacco, save that it was written with a lit pipe within reach.)

As I'm writing, I'm lighting my first bowl ever of Carter Hall. It is, of course, packed in my trusty Kaywoodie Gold. It was billed to me as an over-the-counter burley with a nice Virginia backing. Opening the bag a friend sent me, which arrived just today, I smell plenty of Virginia.
But that's not why I'm writing today. Today I'm writing because of the other package that arrived in the mail today, the one I don't want anyone to tell my wife about.

Ok, so there are a lot of packages we pipe smokers don't want to tell our wives about. It's not that we're trying to hide things from them. We just don't want to explain again why we need more pipes or more tobacco. At least, I don't want to explain it again. I'm sure I'm not the only guy whose wife doesn't understand. I've heard a couple of members of The Ozark Pipe Smokers (who, of course, will remain nameless) say they hope that, after their deaths, their wives don't sell their fishing gear for what they said they paid for it.
So back to me. In my game room, I have a package with a new Wii game waiting for me. Well, it's not really new. I played it before on my Xbox 360 until the second one died and I gave up on the platform. It's a Batman game, which may sound a lot cooler than it is, because it's really Lego Batman.
I played this game with my daughter, who was eight at the time. She's now nine and is playing Lego Star Wars on the Nintendo DS she bought with her Christmas money. But I got hooked on the Batman game when we were playing it together and would even play it at night after she went to bed. Hello, my name is Tom, and I'm addicted to video games.
The Wii was supposed to be a family game, kept in the living room, but that ended because my daughter kept leaving a nearly full can of Sprite on the TV stand above the console, right where the cats always run by. So now it's in the game room — or should I say "my" game room.
I've been looking forward to playing this game all day, so why am I taking the time to tell everyone about it? Well, there's no smoking in the house. I'm in my garage with the big door cracked and a heater keeping me warm. Tobacco first. Games second.
I know my priorities.

Rescheduled emergency meeting

2010-02-03T15:18:00.001-06:00

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men fell short last Saturday, but we're going to try it again.
The weather forecast looks much more promising. A high of 39 degrees, partly cloudy, with only a 10 percent chance of precipitation. Let's hope it stays that way.
For anyone in the northwest Arkansas area, The Ozark Pipe Smokers will be meeting at noon Saturday, Feb. 6, at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co., 111 S. Second St. in Rogers.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the possible tax increase on pipe tobacco. Come with any ideas how we, as a club, can affect the tax on a local level, any special talents you would be willing to donate to the cause, and a desire to join as a group to maintain our current tax levels. Our discussions will hopefully influence discussions with our representatives to the U.S. House and Senate.
Attendance is not limited club members. Anyone is welcomed to join us for the meeting, where we will smoke our pipes and wrack our brains.

Emergency meeting

2010-01-25T22:13:00.000-06:00

For anyone in the northwest Arkansas area, The Ozark Pipe Smokers will be meeting at noon Saturday, Jan. 30, at Romeo's Downtown Pipe & Tobacco Co., 111 S. Second St. in Rogers.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the possible tax increase on pipe tobacco. Come with any ideas how we, as a club, can affect the tax on a local level, any special talents you would be willing to donate to the cause, and a desire to join as a group to maintain our current tax levels. Our discussions will hopefully influence discussions with our representatives to the U.S. House and Senate.
Attendance is not limited club members. Anyone is welcomed to join us for the meeting, where we will smoke our pipes and wrack our brains.

The other shoe

2010-01-23T14:08:00.000-06:00

Anyone paying attention to recent tobacco tax decisions knew this day was coming. Roll-your-own tobacco companies avoided last year's taxes by relabeling their product as pipe tobacco. I laughed when I noticed pipe tobacco popping up that was flavored with "mint," which I, when I was a cigarette smoker, called menthol. I'm not laughing anymore.

The bill in question is House Resolution 4439, which was presented Jan. 13. I'm seeing some support for the bill and a lack of opposition. Instead of redefining what constitutes RYO tobacco, the proposed bill would extend the tax to pipe tobacco. The new tax on pipe tobacco would be about 10 times the current rate, equal to the rate for RYO.
The goal of the house, as far as I can tell, is to close the loophole that allowed RYO tobacco to skirt the new tax, justified or not. They're not trying to target pipe smokers, but we constitute such a small percentage of the population that they're not worried if they upset us. That is, of course, conjecture on my part, but I think the evidence backs it up.
The bill, in its entirety, can be read here. It's a short bill and leaves no question to the impact. I encourage everyone to take a look.
One thing to notice, it does not appear to include a floor tax for retailers, so existing stock would apparently be sold at the current rates. It doesn't mean stocking up would be unjustified.
But while you're stocking up, I encourage you to contact your local federal delegates. You can look up your elected Representatives here. If you are a patron of Romeo's Downtown Pipe and Tobacco Co. or a member of The Ozark Pipe Smokers, your congressman is Rep. John Boozman, and I've listed his office contacts below. Please do not let this bill pass unchallenged. The pipe smokers of America, as few as we are, still need to speak out.

Washington, DC Office:
1519 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4301
Fax: (202) 225-5713

Lowell Office:
213 W. Monroe, Suite K
Lowell, AR 72745
Phone: (479) 725-0400
Fax: (479) 725-0408

Fort Smith Office:
4943 Old Greenwood Road
Suite 1
Fort Smith, AR 72903
Phone: (479) 782-7787
Fax: (479) 783-7662

Harrison Office:
North Arkansas College
303 North Main Street
Suite 102
Harrison, Arkansas 72601
Phone: (870) 741-6900
Fax: (870) 741-7741

What I'm Doing Wrong

2010-01-21T23:37:00.000-06:00

(Author's note: "What I'm Doing Wrong" will be an ongoing series, as there appears no immediate danger that I will run out of things to chronicle.)

Today's word is "tongue bite." Yes, that's two words. If you're experiencing it, what does it matter how many words it has? And I've had it almost steady for a week.

So to tell this story, I have to go back to last Thursday's meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers. As is customary in our club, and I suspect the majority of smoking clubs in existence, our members enjoy bringing tobaccos with them to share. New, aged, it really doesn't seem to matter, and the majority of the time, there's a nice mix of styles. Something for everyone or everything for someone or something like that. On Thursday, the planets must have aligned, because I smoked Va/Per (a blend of Virginia and perique) after Va/Per after Va/Per.
Nothing wrong with that by itself, but you throw in a few other factors. I am not a Va/Per smoker. I've tried a few in passing, but never a lot at one time. All these blends were new to me. I smoked a lot of tobacco that night without stopping for long.
By the end of the night, the front edges of my tongue were sore. The next day, I had lost a lot of sensation other than that "burn." If you look at the graphic I swiped from the University of Nevada Medical Center, you'll see that I had affected the taste buds that detect sweetness, leaving those that sense sour, salty and bitter flavors. Figures.
So now I picked up the pipe on Friday and returned to my usual blends. New blends can cause tongue bite as your body adjusts, usually making it dissipating with time. So it would stand to reason that smoking your normal stuff would reverse the effects. Well, no matter how many bowls I smoked, it stayed. And it was still there then next day, and the one after, and the one after that. Bowl after bowl after bowl. Right now, I'm smoking my go-to blend, McClelland 5100. I smoke it often enough that, if anything will fix tongue bite, it will. But it's still there.

(The solution: Unfortunately, there isn't much of one. Tongue bite can be avoided by becoming accustomed to a blend, smoking it slowly, avoiding moisture in the bowl, and other simple steps, but it will eventually happen. Drinking something, practically anything, can also help. So can eating. I'm told sweets are best. Ironic, isn't it? But when you get a real good case of tongue bite, the only sure cure is to take a break from smoking and let your tongue recover. Please note, this may be the only time I tell anyone to not smoke.)

In case you missed it ...

2010-01-15T16:18:00.001-06:00

The discussion of pipe cleaning techniques planned for last night's meeting of The Ozark Pipe Smokers was better than expected, thanks to Vice President Jeff, who prepared a demonstration.

All eyes lit up when Jeff pulled out a (sadly deplenished) bottle of Everclear, but it was not, I repeat, NOT passed around the room for everyone to have a taste. Maybe next time.
The Everclear, which we learned was available in Washington County liquor stores and the Jane, Mo., Walmart, is the basis for the cleaning process. Jeff recommended the use of pipe cleaners, starting with bristled cleaners or bristle brushes, dipped in Everclear and run through the stem. He said he inserts from the tenon at first, because it is easier to get the cleaner back out if the draft hole is too tight.
That process continues in the shank, with a special emphasis on the mortis, where the bowl and the stem meet, which can accumulate large amounts of gunk, especially if the fit between the two pieces isn't exact.
Before adding anything to the bowl, Jeff plugs the shank with an ear plug, the kind at Walgreen's with a string attached. Actually, he said, he also used the string to set the pipe on, helping it stay upright.
Jeff recommended filling the pipe about one-third with Everclear (using an eyedropper to avoid getting alcohol on the outside of the bowl) and then adding sea salt, alternating as needed, until the pipe is full of both. He said he leaves the pipes with the salt/alcohol mixture sitting for at least 24 hours, at which point, he'll scoop out the salt. On rare occasion, he's needed a second treatment, but generally at this point, he is ready to wipe out the bowl with an alcohol-dampened paper towel. He leaves the bowl and stem separated for another 24 hours while they dry.
To polish the outside of the bowl, Jeff recommended Murphy's oil soap, mixed 50/50 with water. It should be applied gently, Jeff said, because it can remove some of the stain. He preferred Halcyon II wax over Paragon or carnauba for the final polish. For lighter jobs, he said he used the Stanwell polishing cloth.
For vulcanite stems, even or especially for heavily oxidized stems, Jeff uses Flitz Metal Cleaner. The blue solution can be worked into the stem, he said, and then the effects continue as it is buffed with a dry portion of terrycloth. Without using much pressure, Jeff returned an oxidized stem to a like-new shine. He said it could take 30 minutes for some stems. He said he has not seen it remove an emblem.
"If you've got faint scratches, it'll take most of your scratch marks off," Jeff said. It does not, however, remove bite marks. He also said it works as a polish and can prevent future oxidation.
For metal bands, he recommended a Sunshine Polishing Cloth after the wood and stem had been taped over using blue painters tape.
During next month's meeting, on Feb. 12, we have chosen to discuss cellaring methods. Bring your stories and suggestions and questions and, if you want to share, your aged tobacco.

What I'm Doing Wrong

2010-01-13T00:48:00.000-06:00

(Author's note: "What I'm Doing Wrong" will be an ongoing series, as there appears no immediate danger that I will run out of things to chronicle.)

There are flavors in tobacco beyond the obvious one. Sure, there's this single overarching taste and aroma, but tobaccos (good ones, anyway) also have subtle undertones. At least, that's what I'm told.

I'll be honest, I haven't noticed any except for a time or two. I can't say that I'm doing anything different than other pipers have done. I have my pipe — a poker made by a member of our pipe club — and my tobacco. I pack and light and puff and tamp and light and tamp and puff. Still, the subtleties don't come.
At least I'm preoccupied while I wait. I'm watching the first season of "24,"which I find sadly contrived. I mean, amnesia? Come on! And, of course, I'm writing. I'm always writing, or trying to write, wracking my brains to find the right words to convey the right action or emotion. If all that fails, I have iTunes and Pandora and lots of CDs. Even then, I still hear noises coming from outside the garage, and I'm nosy enough that I feel I need to see what's happening in the street. Call it a nervous habit.
But at least I still have my pipe to keep me company, puffing away and sending out little smoke signals. I get the flavor of Virginia or latakia or burley, whatever the major tobacco is in the blend. I'm sure I'll find them. Someday. Until then, I'll busy myself with a bowl and some entertainment and pass the time as I punch keys on a computer.

(The solution: Like everything else in life, smoking is best done slow and with a proper amount of focus. If you want the most out of your tobacco and your pipe smoking experience, sip the tobacco and focus only on it. That being said, there's nothing wrong with smoking as a supplement to other activities, as long as you don't expect as much from it.)